MY son is invariably the last one to get ready whenever we go out together to attend a social gathering. He explains that in these modern times, more than the character of a person, it is the clothes, hairdo, gel, perfumes, deodorants and other necessary accessories that contribute to a good personality.
My daughter dismissively says it is just another manifestation of the metrosexual mania. According to her, a metrosexual is an out-and-out narcissist, a man who is highly fashion conscious and is obsessed about the way he looks. This new breed of men also claims to be more sensitive, soft and charming instead of being rough and tough.
This was the first time I had heard of the word ‘metrosexual’, let alone the shock of learning from my daughter that my son could actually be one. I was intrigued by this new word. So I immediately tried to find the meaning of this word in the Chambers English Dictionary, printed in 1989, but failed to find any such word. I then asked a journalist friend of mine who, like me, had never heard of it. So finally I went online and visited wordspy.com, the favourite website of mine devoted to tracking and documenting the appearance of neologisms, and entered metrosexual in the search column. As I result I came to know: “A metrosexual is an urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.” Mark Simpson of the Independent invented this word, the explanation was further elucidated in 1994.
According to Mark Simpson, the typical metrosexual is “a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis, because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial, because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modelling, waiting tables, media, pop music and nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they’re pretty much everywhere.” The term may be particularly new to me, but I soon realized that I had encountered this disturbing type of man quite frequently in recent times.
My daughter came across this word while reading a report on Bollywoods’s blockbuster, Kal hon na ho. According to that report Karan Johar has portrayed Saif Ali Khan as meterosexual in this film. Ever since, this term has gained popularity in this part of the world. And now it is considered a new phenomenon.
When I started off as a young journalist in the 1970s, stoicism, self-denial, courage and the ability to face torrid situations used to be the hallmark of a man. The role of the ideal husband was to earn the money for his wife and children. This type of man, although reasonably well-to-do, did not have more than five pairs of clothes, which he continued to wear long after people could recognize them from a distance as his. Apart from simple shaving kit and soap, beauty products, including shampoos, for men were virtually unheard of.
This plain, modest, unmoisturized male was probably not much of a visual treat, but his selflessness meant that his children had the money for quality education, his wife and parent lived a life of comfort and last but no least he was content too, basking in the joy of a happy family life. The only party unsatisfied and deeply critical of this ‘unrefined’ type of man was the peddler of unbridled consumerism. This type of man was a total dead end as far as consumerism was concerned, because he did not shop at all.
During those days beauty parlours and boutiques were there to cater to the need of women only. No male could even think of the fact that a time would come when men would also have beauty salons and boutiques to fulfil their needs. In fact, nobody even in his wildest dream ever though that a time would come when men would be requiring such artificial aids and makeup to look beautiful, because the concept of a smart man was absolutely different.
Then somewhere in the ‘90s I began to hear about designer shops dedicated to men’s clothing. The fashion tsars of this metropolis like Amir Adnan, Aijjaz, Jamshaid, Humayun Saeed and many more suddenly woke up to the new, fashion conscious, money spending man. They came out with shalwar-kameez designs, once meant for women only, and the recent addition of a dupatta to a variety of suits has made these more effeminate. There was a time when such style adopted by men was considered absolutely unmanly.
Moreover, beauty saloons of the male variety are cropping up everywhere, chagrining as much as Rs200 or even more, for a simple haircut and offering services such as facials, manicure and pedicure, colouring of hair —- anything that a beauty conscious male could think of. Needless to add that the mushrooming of hair transplant clinics in the city is also a manifestation of this phenomenon.
I am sure all this money and time spent on personal grooming is aesthetically speaking very fine, but I wonder what happens when this generation of metrosexuals is called upon to do their bit of duty towards their family and community.
