Waiters at a five-star hotel restaurant in Calcutta dress up as Veerappan in June 2001. The hotel used Veerappan's notoriety to attract customers to its southern Indian food festival
Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters
As someone who could no more grow a moustache than an extra leg, I can't help but be impressed by the photographs of Veerappan, the Indian bandit thought to have killed 150 people before being shot dead last night by security forces.
To be clear what we're dealing with here: according to the categories recognised by the World Beard and Moustache Championships, Veerappan favoured "imperial" whiskers.
The Hindustan Times describes Veerappan as "the brigand with the deadly moustache", though I think strictly speaking it was he who was deadly, and not his 'tache.
There is no doubt, though, that Veerappan's moustache played an important part in his mythology. Ravi Shankar in India Today is quite in awe of Veerappan's moustache, which he says "struts the broadwalk of national imagination". Shankar rightly points out that Indian culture has traditionally seen facial hair as a mark of manhood, though he suspects that modern tastes prefer the clean-shaven visage.
