A Pair of Mustachios
by Mulk Raj Anand
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Narrated with light humour, the story is set in an Indian village where different styles of moustache mark rigid class distinctions, the lion, the tiger, the goat, the Charlie Chaplin, the mouse. Seth Ramanand, a prosperous grocer and moneylender of the 'goat-moustached' shopkeeper class, twists his moustache upward so that it almost resembles the aristocratic tiger moustache. This enrages Khan Azam Khan, an impoverished but proud descendant of Afghan nobility who wears the tiger moustache. To force the moneylender to keep his moustache in the humble goat style, the Khan keeps pawning and finally selling all his belongings, his wife's nose-ring, a seven-generation necklace, and at last his whole household of goods and chattels. The cunning moneylender, exploiting the Khan's absurd pride, grows richer while the Khan is reduced to a pauper, yet walks away proudly twisting his tiger moustache. The story satirises class pride, feudal vanity and the shrewdness of the commercial class.
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Anand narrates the tale in a light, comic vein to satirise the rigid class distinctions of Indian society and the foolish pride that clings to empty symbols of status. The whole quarrel is about the shape of a moustache, yet it ruins a proud man financially while enriching a shrewd one.
Moustaches as marks of class
The narrator explains that in his country various styles of moustache mark the boundaries between classes: the lordly lion moustache of rajas and generals, the tiger moustache of the surviving feudal gentry, the unsure goat moustache of the new commercial bourgeoisie, the Charlie Chaplin of clerks, the sheep of coolies and the mouse of peasants. Any 'poaching' of one class's style by another is fiercely resented.
The offending twist
Seth Ramanand, a grocer-moneylender who has prospered by buying cheap crops from hard-pressed peasants, twists his goat moustache upward so it nearly resembles a tiger moustache. Khan Azam Khan, a tall, dignified but penniless descendant of Moghul-court nobility who genuinely wears the tiger moustache, notices this while pawning his wife's nose-ring and angrily orders the moneylender to turn his moustache down to its proper goat style.
The moneylender's cunning
The amenable moneylender, whose maxim is that the customer is always right, keeps 'obliging' the Khan, but each time he brings one tip of the moustache down, the other stays or turns up. To make him keep both tips down, the Khan must keep offering more security. He pawns the nose-ring, then sells a necklace handed down through seven generations, each time enraged that a moneylender's moustache should ape his own.
The Khan ruined, his pride intact
Finally the Khan signs a deed, witnessed by the village elders, transferring all his household goods and chattels to the moneylender, who then keeps both tips glued down in the goat style. The Khan is reduced to a pauper, yet walks away giving his tiger moustache a special proud twist, while the moneylender mutters to the peasants, 'My father was a Sultan.' Vanity has beggared the noble and enriched the shrewd.