Masala Pradesh Returns: Attack of the Moustaches!

Mouche+Shatru bombast = SWAGGER

First of all, let me say a resounding SOOOORRRRRYYYY! For being so behind on blogging and even twittering less and less these days! Life as we all know, smashes all of my favourite vices like blogging, tweeting like a teenager, watching movies all away come Uni time! And it really does make me sad, but fret not I shall always complain and grumble about the small town i live in and the lack of Indian films being shown here. If i didn't then mera naam Rumnique nahi!
Alas along with November being my birthday month, the male species have decided to make it so much more worthwile by adding some fuzz to their lips, and generally looking like dapper young men. Along with Ness and Dolce and Namak's mouche post, I had to jump on the bandwagon being the sheep that I am. Now that i enter the non-stationary age of 21, I thought my post had to tie in with my usual birthday post to talk about the formative moustache men of my life!
1. Anil Kapoor - Now you would think I've had enough gushing over my favourite man, but I haven't every year I thank the king of moustaches in my life: Anil! Take a bow sir, and slap for ruining my life as well, expecting all my gentleman callers to have such pompadour hair and glorious mouche like that on them! Over the years, like the ridiculous fan girl I am, I noticed that Anil had many different styles of mush like this:

A more manlier thicker one!

But I like the spontaneity he gives with his earlier films, from the pencil thin ones from Woh Saat Din to the iconic mush of Parinda and all of his later films. Like a fine wine, Anil's mush though now a very tame rectangular beard in his Hollywood films, just gets better and better to look at when i pop a dvd in from the 80's or Noughties, there are things to swoon over! So here's to the moustachioed man of my dil!


2. Jackie Shroff - my sister's old fave moustachioed man! Now here is where a mouche worked wonders for a man, that mouche made him look so mysterious and sexy! Again it all stems back to that wicked and evil first movie 1942:A Love Story where both Anil AND Jackie appeared in to begin the hysteria! Now before he got a bit blobby and appearing in a long line of mediocre movies, Jackie was my second fave moustache man and I used to go through almost all of his film on Zee Tv in London! And that mouche just worked with his image of the dark and brooding hero who loved to dishoom someone, growl out his lines, and occasionally frolic about in his infamous Speedo in Rangeela!


3. Raj Kapoor - again this might be a repetitive list of all the men I love who just happen to have moustaches but I shall argue that a moustache maketh the man! In the case of this RK, he was a very beautiful man and that mush gave him that edge that made me go swoony like I do with an Errol Flynn or Robert Taylor. He just had that look that would not be out of place in an old Hollywood film. In the case of Raj it certainly did as he just looked odd without it as in Aag where he looked almost pubescent! And I think when I saw Awara or Shree 420, that Raju the tramp look was helped by his look and the mush which was so distinct and pencil thin without being the usual stuck on line across your lip-look which heroes these days try and pull off! And I may need to add a whole new chapter to my long RK essay about his mush for another time!

The king of rakish mouches!

4. Shatrugan Sinha - Now a list without Shatru would be injustice in the Masala Pradesh! He just exudes rakishness and bad behavior, and I think the mush adds to that! When I saw the fabulous Blackmail and my first Shatru film, he just blew me away with his laconic and stylish attitude! He played the bad guy so well, and you could tell he meant business with those hilariously scandalous pictures he had with Rakhee! Now his moustache is all thin but he still has something dangerous about him even as an oldie!

5. Vikram - Ughh I'm already dying of mouche pyar attack! I don't what it is about Vikram, actually it's the mush of course, that gives me a fainting attack?! I saw him all those years ago in the original Sethu/Tere Naam and I had the usual preconceptions about South Indian films that the actors were all plain but moustachioed (it had some potential there!) and it was all OTT, but now looking back that is totally what I love about these films! And Vikram was just amazing in that movie and again the mush helps! He has that Jackie Shroff mysterious and dangerous look to him that just sets off any lady's swoon-o-meter!


6. Ajay Devgn - It is quite amusing to search for Ajay on search engines with the original surname Devgan bringing up his clean-shaven past, and the Devgn with his accepted and much better moustachioed look! Maybe its also the hair, the Devgan lad had the floppy Hugh grant silly look in his previous films, and with the mouche and tidied up hair he looks dapper and swoony again! In Singham with that mouche that was almost approaching his predecessor Surya's length, he managed to pull it off with style. And I have to say, that I can't stand him without a mouche, or if he has to be a grassless lawn then there must be some stubble or something there!

The Hall of Moustache Shame and InBetweeners

Sorry Surya, veering into the porn star mush!

7. Surya - I have really tried to like Surya with a mouche but he just can't get it right! Just look at the above one, what the hell is going on with the bass note looking curl there?! He nails the stubble look and the full beard look with aplomb but he is such an Inbetweener! He cannot find a mouche to appease the Masala Pradesh standards! But Surya is a seriously cute actor and his smile is unbelievably adorable so the judgement is that Surya with a stubble to almost clean shaven is a go, but try and hone in that mush one of these days!


8. Shahid Kapoor - Yeh kya bakwaas hai? was the immediate reaction to this nonsense fluff on his upper lip! I really do get what he was going for, trying to look older and a bit more distinguished, but this look is banished from the Moustache Land! Hell even a stubble makes him a look a lot better like in Kaminey, but bleeurgh!

The International Hall of Fame


9. Omar Sharif - It was my friend's mistake for taking me to see Lawrence of Arabia for the first time on the big screen. However gorgeous and cinematic Omar's little speck entry was, I coined it as 'The Entry of the most gorgeous moustache ever put to screen!" I managed to gasp egregiously loud and embarrassed my friend forever! But he is just exceedingly beautiful and to add to my shameful list I did gasp in another swoon attack when I saw him much later in 'Monsieur Ibrahim' he just aged so nicely but has maintained that mush that captured my heart when i was 17!

Yes, I needed a beefcake picture like that

10. Mouche deigned from heave+ tiny chuddi shorts = DUH.... (drools like Homer)

So there you have my top 10, and I am so glad to be back to blogging after so long, and I hope to be reviewing a lot more now that assignments and essays are almost done and due soon! ALSO honourable mentions to Abhishek who is hereby barred from going clean shaven, and Orlando Bloom who almost made me go and see Three Musketeers for his Anil Kapoor channeling! What are some of your faves?