Uhuru!

How far does a beard get you? Some days mine gets me as far as the living room couch from the bedroom.

I don't have a beard, usually. One of the primary reasons for it is the fact that I like sleeping on my own bed. My wife, you see, is from the anti-beard league.

She says if she wanted to marry a man with a beard, she would have found one. I remind her that she did - I was the proud possessor of a beard till about four days before the wedding, whereupon all sorts of lobbying was done, pressure exerted, diplomatic channels explored to get me to get rid of my goatee. My own mother and bride were the perpetrators, with cousins and even a four-year old niece playing supporting roles. Admittedly, I had grown my beard in the three weeks preceding the wedding, but it was for the express purpose of keeping it there for the big day.

I thought it made me look better, more mature; more bearded, as opposed to collared that some people end up looking like in family function photographs. It lent a bit of sang-froid to my demeanour. There was a little more respect. Except for from my wife. She resolutely stood in the way of all pursuits involving facial hair.

Initially I thought, like most women, she was jealous, for try as they might, getting a beard is beyond the capabilities of most ladies. Try as I might, I could never get her to give me a convincing reason for why I should not keep a beard.

"You look older. I didn't marry an old man" This was one of the reasons for keeping the thing in the first place, besides, I am an old man inside my head. 

"Don't you feel uncomfortable with a beard?" I think I can decide that on my own.

"Isn't it very humid to have a beard?" I don't think so - we have hair on our heads, among other places. Besides, growth thrives in humidity. Have you ever heard of a humid desert?

Or sometimes, it would just be a barefaced threat. "Remove the beard or you will sleep on the living room couch."

"Why don't you like my beard?" I asked her.

"Because if I wanted to marry a man with a beard, I would have done so." And we merrily wend our way through another iteration of that same argument.

That's not the only thing though. She wants me not to want a beard, willingly abandon it. Even if I have grown it. The chief logic there being along the lines of 'How can I possibly want it?'

The more I think of it, the more I am certain that it is much more than just a beard growing on my chin.

It is a question of sovereignty.

Men go into marriage thinking of friendship, companionship, sharing their lives and their space with another person, for fifteen minutes every day, following a standard five day week, allowing for the usual annual leave and sick days.

Women, it seems, get married as an act of colonialism: they want to share 27 hours a day, eight days a week. 'Sharing' of course is doing things the way 'she' wants them done. For men sharing means sitting on the same couch while 'he' watches TV. I think it is very useful. I call it 'Sharing with Space.'

So the question of my beard, I realized, was a question of sovereignty over my chin. Whether it had been annexed or not. I believed I held all rights to my chin, to do as I pleased, for hair to come and go by my pleasure. I was of course, wrong. My rights to my chin had lapsed.

I felt the need to exert some individuality - I quit shaving.

By the end of the week, the couch was my home, my son called me brother bear, my wife was carrying a placard saying "Jesus Lives" and each time my niece and nephew saw me, would chorus tonelessly "PJ Uncle please shave your beard!!"

I capitulated, going by the adage: He who runs away lives to see another day.

But my resolve lives on secretly. The rebels fled to the hills, but their loyalty to the cause remains. Skirmishes ensue.

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Recently I ran into a friend of mine - we hadn't met each other for months.

"Wife out of town?" He asked me?

"Yes," I replied.

"Must be a long trip." He said.

"How do you know?" I asked him, genuinely surprised.

"Takes at least two weeks to grow that kind of beard." He replied.