Masculinity

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Reflections on Manners, Modernity, and Manhood

Introduction: The Quiet Disappearance of the Gentleman

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.” — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

There was once a time when the word “gentleman” conjured the image of a man who, without flourish or applause, walked the world clothed in courtesy. He was not loud, nor was he perpetually trying to impress; he simply was. The gentleman did not seek to govern a room but to privilege it with his presence. And yet, in our times—these breathless, pixel-saturated, irony-laced times—the word has grown dim. Not extinct, for good things never quite die, but hidden, misunderstood, and in many quarters, openly mocked.

Gentlemanliness is now confused with either wealth or eccentricity, mistaken for frivolity, or worse, seen as a variety of social betrayal—a refusal to join the cynical hysterics of the age. But the gentleman is not a figure of nostalgia. He is a necessity, a discreet defiance against vulgarity, incivility, and the cult of congruity. He is not perfect—no man is—but he strives to uphold a standard, not to look down upon others, but to rise above his own lesser instincts.

This assortment, therefore, is not a manual of mannerisms but a meditation on meaning. It is a calm call to those who sense, in their souls, that dignity has not lost its value and that refinement is not vanity but reverence made visible.

OF BELCHES, BUTTER KNIVES, AND BUFFOONERY

“Manners are the silent language of virtue.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine a society where to belch brashly after a meal is applauded, while to compliment the food with straightforward sincerity is met with suspicion—as though the act of appreciating flavour were a dangerous flirtation with death. Picture a world in which wine is sipped from brandy glasses for the sake of novelty, and where a man who knows the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork is dismissed as pretentious, while a butter knife stabbed into marmalade becomes an object of anarchic humour.

In this curious inversion, it is deemed admirable to leap ahead in queues, while the man who dares to object is treated as a national embarrassment. The very act of placing an exclamation mark at the end of an email is met with inner shame, and the man who texts in complete sentences is viewed not as literate, but alien—as though sent from another planet to confuse the native dialect of “dis is ma numbr.”

If any of these peculiarities strike a chord with your experience or outlook, then I fear you may be an unwitting member of the gentleman’s club—an endangered breed in a world that considers boyishness gallant and gentlemanliness harlequinade. This, dear reader, is no trivial matter. For when the rudest become the trendsetters and the refined become the punchline, we are not merely rearranging social customs—we are dismantling the very virtues that anchor civility.

TAILORED TRUTHS – STYLE IS NOT SUBSTANCE

“Style is the perfection of a point of view.” — Richard Eberhart

By some exultant fortune of birth, hailing from aristocratic lineage, I have found myself in the company of men across many dominions—fashion, business, film, literature, politics. In these various orbits, I have observed one persistent illusion: that elegance is something one wears. To be adorned in the finest fabrics, to walk in shoes hand-stitched by some Parisian artisan, to slick one’s hair with the finest pomade—this, it is believed, constitutes class.

But what a woeful misunderstanding! True elegance, like true faith or virtue, is invisible to the eye. It is a state of mind. It begins in the soul. A genuine gentleman does not depend on his attire to announce his worth. He is equally at home in sneakers and jeans as he is in a made-to-measure suit. In being at ease with himself, he carves his own style—and that, in time, becomes his legacy.

Trends are transient, buffeted by the whims of designers and the fervour of markets. But the man who cultivates taste rather than fashion, subtlety rather than spectacle, and individuality rather than imitation—he is the one who shall stand when the winds of trendiness have shifted yet again.

THE GENTLE ART OF MODESTY AND KNOWING THAT THE GRAVE IS THE SAME SIZE FOR US ALL

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” — Thomas Merton

Whether it was a Bentley or a custom-made Brioni, a Patek Philippe or a pair of John Lobb—these were, in my youth, the paraphernalia of our daily lives. But never were we educated to see them as symbols of superiority. Instead, we were told, tacitly and often, that all things and all people are equal, and that the tree which bears the most fruit bows the lowest.

It was made plain to us that reputation is life’s most precious capital, and that good carriages are the true wealth of any man—wealth that neither moth nor rust can corrupt. A gentleman, we were told, is as comfortable speaking to a watchman as he would be dining with a queen. He seeks depth, not glitter; meaning, not mirage.

He remembers that no matter how vast his house, or gleaming his car, or tailored his jacket, the size of his grave will match that of the beggar. Egotism may blind him, but mortality will level him. And the man who lives with this in view will walk in greater stateliness than the man who struts with borrowed airs.

POLITENESS AND PREJUDICE – THE QUEER IRONY AND THE MISLABELLING OF PROPRIETIES

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was in the tenth grade when I first encountered the savage irony that often attends deference. A classmate—clement, compassionate, and unfailingly courteous—was being whispered about. “Queer,” they said, though they acknowledged his clear affection for the opposite sex. The evidence? He visited friends when they were ill, left them handwritten notes, rose from his seat to greet a guest, and said ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ with unusual frequency.

Such demeanours, they said, were too ‘vintage,’ too soft—surely unmanly. I sniggered at first. Then I grew immovably appalled. Must masculinity now be proven by indifference and rudeness? Does tenderness now imply something disordered?

No one becomes homosexual by writing thank-you notes. Nor does one become heterosexual by thumping one’s chest like an ape. We must grow up—and quickly. For if we persist in equating refinement with deviance, we not only wrong the refined but contribute to a cruelty that may crush a serener soul. There are young men who live in terror of being themselves, because to be thoughtful is now ‘pansy,’ and to be lurid is to be strong.

But a well-groomed man knows better. He knows that bearings arise from upbringing, not orientation. That finesse is not an affectation but a second skin, as water is to fish. And he knows too that he cannot please everyone—and ought never to try. As Jim Morrison once wrote: “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.”

THE TYRANNY OF THE PHONE AND THE GIFT OF PRESENCE

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” — Christian Lous Lange

Even the mellowest man, I have observed, often transforms into a different creature when armed with a mobile phone. We live in an age addicted to urgency, where the tiniest vibration demands immediate devotion. Yet it is the designation of the well-groomed man to regard the person before him as more important than the machine in his hand.

To text, talk, or scroll while in the company of family, friends, or colleagues—save for true emergencies—is not simply impolite; it is a theft. One robs the present of presence. One exchanges the luminous here-and-now for the endless elsewhere.

A gentleman understands that love is attention, and attention is time—and time is the one coinage that can never be refunded. To choose presence is to choose veneration, to honour the moment as sacred. And no good man would compromise such priorities lightly.

HAIR, HABIT, AND THE COURTESY OF APPEARANCE

“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It is godliness.” — Mahatma Gandhi

We form judgments—often subconsciously, often immediately—based on how a man keeps his hair. An untidy mop may suit the artist or the rebel, but it seldom serves the gentleman. Cleanliness, not conceit, is the motive. A cropped, well-kept look endures as a stamp of self-respect.

And it is not merely the hair atop one’s head. The hair that sprouts from ear, nose, or chest—when left unchecked—draws less admiration than alarm. Nature may endow us with fur like a polar bear, but civilisation expects more than the wilderness provides. If one desires the arm of a lady about his own, he must not appear to have walked out of the Stone Age.

Facial hair may be permitted, but it, too, must be tamed. A stubble, artfully kept, is not barbarism; it can even lend charm. But to wear one’s grooming as a sign of dissent is to confuse choice with sloth.

Even the contentious question of chest hair deserves a word. Some women swoon over a light dusting; others prefer the sleekness of a smooth torso. But no man should look as though he belongs in a cage at the zoo. We are not apes. We are men. Let us strive to look the part.

CONCLUSION: THE TIMELESSNESS OF REFINEMENT

“You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” — C.S. Lewis

Gentlemanliness is not a coat one wears on occasion. It is a disposition of the soul—an inaudible dedication to living rightly. In a world infatuated with immediacy, the gentleman pauses. In an age that celebrates the crude and the clamorous, he chooses the gracious and the true.

Let no man believe that to be a gentleman is to be outdated. To be a gentleman is to be eternal. For regality will always have its place, and decency will always be in style.

So let us not look to the world to define our worth. Let us instead polish our etiquettes as one polishes silver—not to impress, but to honour what is honourable, virtuous, and beautiful. For these things, however implicitly they may shine, will outlast every trend, every laugh, and every sneer of the present age.

Frédéric Bazille, Fisherman With A Net

The present peppery tittle-tattle I have heard enough at clubs and drawing room discussions are about the full-frontal images of Orlando Bloom’s penis as he was vacationing at a Sardinian beach in Italy with his singer girlfriend Katy Perry. Bear in mind that this is something being quite devoured by the very men who claim to be magnificent wielders of masculinity, and those who fiercely refrain from murmuring anything ‘penis’ with the dread of making them sound sexually devious. Yet, the same men appear fascinated by the shade of skin, the size, the girth, the length, and can be seen debating on how Bloom is uncircumcised when around sixty per cent of the world’s males have their foreskin sacrificed by their parents, without their permission obviously, soon after birth.

I would commence by drawing a quote from Orlando Bloom in the Nude that was published in The New Yorker, August 11, 2016 by Naomi Fry, a writer and the copy chief at T: The New York Times Style Magazine, “Seeing Bloom’s penis was exciting. (And I should say, too, so as not to seem fully shady, that while I have no proof Bloom knew of the photographers, it seems to me that if you’re a celebrity getting naked in a public place, you probably know that having your picture taken is a strong possibility; and these were no telephoto lens pictures.) First, there was the obvious thing of full-frontal male nudity, which is still relatively rare to see—the cock, in our culture, too often playing the role of that mysterious, precious prize behind a curtain. (And as Adorno and Horkheimer once wrote, “only one girl can draw the lucky ticket”!) Then, also, there was the fact that the grinning Bloom seemed to be having a great time. More than this, his penis itself seemed … happy? Both man and member appeared to reside in a relaxed nether-region, somewhere between “casual” and “ready for action,” not hard but also not entirely soft, as if saying, “I know you’re looking at me so I’ll be presentable, but I’m still, for all intents and purposes, on a break, so I’m going to feign unawareness of your gaze.” The whole thing felt offhandedly generous.”

While we are on the subject that is keeping the world excited with its exposure, I would like to rewind a little and throw light on how menfolk at our fitness clubs are rather inherently obsessed about men walking undressed in our locker rooms. To provide you a quick outline, I workout at the Marriott Whitefield and Oakwood at UB City. While the Marriott has people largely from Germany, Britain, France, Belgium and New Zealand frequenting it, Oakwood sports a predominantly Indian set of patrons with those from the Caucasian race showing up rather rarely. In order to make one best understand things, I shall, therefore, endeavour to recount an episode that happened with me earlier this year.

I was over with my workout at Oakwood and entered the locker area. A gentleman who regularly visits the club scurried up to me. “Have you seen that guy?” he uttered in an undertone. I turned in the direction of that guy he was referring to and spotted a well-shaped man, about six feet in height, reading something on his iPhone. “Do you see what I see,” asked the gentleman, his voice still low. My vision intact, I failed to unearth his motive and thus arched my eyebrows probingly. “He walks naked, that bloke from Berlin.” I studied my gym mate with scepticism. “And he does this daily.”

“I see,” I said without any emotion.

“I so want to tell him to cover his package.” He stopped short as the man passed us by and bid us a good evening. I wished him a good evening and opened my locker. The gentleman came closer, “It’s so wrong,” he went on. “What is?” I asked, retrieving my box of dry fruits from my gym bag. “It’s so wrong to walk like that in India,” said the gentleman in hushed tones, eyeballing to make sure nobody was within earshot. “I walk about like that at the gym in Marriott,” I said nonchalantly, plummeting my teeth into a kernel of almond. The gentleman instantly wore a flabbergasted expression, “You strip completely?” he enquired.

“I do, yes, when I am changing into my underpants after I have unwrapped my towel, or when I am on my way to the steam or sauna.”

“Fully?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t embarrass you?”

“What’s to be embarrassed about, it is not like I am putting on a show?”

“What about the Jacuzzi. You sit naked in it too?”

“Everywhere.”

“You don’t feel embarrassed?”

“I thought you asked me that a few seconds ago.”

He swallowed as his face turned a shade of red, “You are creepy,” he said with an uncomfortable grin, grabbed a Turkish towel and made away to the steam room. I shut my locker, and enroute to the shower I thought to myself, how bewildering was human nature; I could not bring myself to decipher the conundrum around why Indian men were horrified at the sight of something that was such a central chunk of our culture – the male genitals are worshipped in our country, and yet they behaved like it was blasphemy to set eyes on the nether regions of another man.

The temperament of that exchange got me thinking about the fuss. What was it really? Aren’t we habituated to seeing men bare-butt in our excessively skin-centric society? Haven’t these men who feign to be outraged by nudity, not set their eyes any pornography at all? Or do they possess mystical powers to mist out the men and watch only the women while watching such films? You have a child in India scampering naked, and that is acceptable? Aren’t we grown-up enough to look at our penises maturely, or are we that naïve and childlike that the vista of someone else’s member should evoke in us peculiar reactions when it is an accepted appendage – an ordinary portion of their body like our penis is on our own?

Methinks nakedness must be associated with naturalness. It ought to be treated with a confident rather than a conservative spirit. Methinks that we need to move beyond our caddish behaviour. Methinks that a rational adult will not squirm on seeing another man’s penis. And if it worries him, then there are graver issues that he might have to scrutinise regarding why it is disturbing him more than what is required, considering that the men who are changing, or walking about naked, aren’t doing it for anyone’s titillation, but merely as an extension of their upbringing, culture and habit.

As a heterosexual man, secure in his masculinity, I would like to clear the dust on three things, first, that when people have no problem with their nakedness, then you ought not to have a problem with people, and this is just about the healthiest unsolicited advise I can offer at this point to anybody who finds themselves confused about such matters. Second, I am okay with it in so far as it does not disrupt the standards of what is permissible. If I were to stroll on the street, or make a spectacle of my nakedness for the sake of seeking pleasure in spaces other than say the sports club, then that would entail that I have my head examined. Third, the fact remains that every one of us gazes at it for that one dot of a second when we see it uncovered and in front of us. It is normal human tendency. It has nothing to do with curiosity; has more to do with men wanting to size the person up, mainly to ascertain who is better endowed. It is about the survival of the fittest in order to propagate one’s progeny. And when our breeding instinct kicks in, we are not consciously at fault; it is just that biology makes us behave in such a manner.

I must confess that it has been a long time since I have found myself in a relationship with a woman. Not that I am deprived of the company of the opposite sex, it is purely that I find it distressing to make any conversation with them. They are either too taken in by embellishing their superficial appearances, or too engaged in scheming what type of man to seize within the manufactured net of deceit they have spread far afield in order to ensure a catch suitable of providing them a life of luxury and material contentment. Due to that culture, that very strongly rules the roost, I have tussled with a magnifying glass in order to discover a woman who could talk to me, and have come away finding those ordained in wasting time on inconsequential rambling. I don’t know, perhaps I am a bigger fool when I am aware that it shouldn’t surprise me that when they are accustomed to such a pattern, to then expect them to think when they are preoccupied with such inanities is simply asking for too much.

I would like to conclude with an experience I had with a date somewhat recently. In less than five minutes of our meeting, I understood that not a strand of our wavelengths matched. It was the most tedious two hours where I struggled to make up sentences that made no sense to me, and yet I found her delighting in my unimaginative way of communication. Let me give you an example. I told her that Winston Churchill and Charles Dickens were imaginary characters, whereas Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes had really existed, and much to my dismay, she bought it, and most genuinely. The irony of our digitally distracted era I told myself – people are dumber than ever before when information actually exists at their fingertips. Sitting before her, I imagined what people some years from now would think of those names. I guess they’ll probably ask if those are names of amusement parks or older names of mountains. When we were done with our luncheon, I walked her to her car at the parking of the restaurant. She leaned her back on her car and we kissed, something that I felt was obligatory. I know what you are thinking and I’ll let you think what you are thinking. I soon observed her opening the first two buttons of the shirt she was wearing. Her cleavage now in full view, we remained facing each other without speaking a word. Deeming my silence as a mark of approval, she undid another button and reached for my hand. I resisted. “Sweetheart,” she said seductively, “don’t you want to see my naked tits?” I hesitated and gulped, “To be perfectly honest I would much prefer a cup of coffee,” I answered gently. She buttoned her shirt, sat in the car and drove away quietly. The instant she was out of my vision, I rang my mate who had set this silly ‘meet up’ as he described it and told him that he would have no testicles left to flaunt about to anyone the next time he even tries to fix me up with someone I am least interested in. “I don’t know what to do with you,” he exclaimed, “how am I to help you get laid if you only want a cerebral connection.”

“Have I ever reached out for assistance in order to get laid?” I asked curtly.

“Fuck the brains, my fella,” thundered my friend, “for once let your cock talk directly to her cunt. That’s the connection you should be looking for and not some mental shit you speak!”

“What makes you feel I am deprived of what I need?” I asked.

“Dude,” he said with some irritation, “if you had only married on time we wouldn’t have to break our heads on you.”

“How very considerate,” I shot back.

“Don’t mock me!”

I laughed heartily.

“No, man,” his voice assumed an air of someone trying to convince a child, “if you had married when you were twenty-five or twenty-seven, you would have found yourself happy, and you would have adjusted to her ways too. The problem is that time is far spent, and you are so fucking unyielding now that you give no scope for someone to find some space in your heart.”

“I was particular even back then.”

“Yes, you have always been a pig.”

I laughed even louder and told him that as much as I appreciated his concern, marriage was not the ticket to permanent and unparalleled joy, and that the person one needed to be with, would put in an appearance with the timely assistance of the forces of nature, and to organise for dates like he had done was not only unmerited, but made one look like a buffoon. “I tried my best, dude,” my friend said, “but you are way too stubbornly old-fashioned to budge so I am resting my case.”

Care and concern radiated from what my friend wanted for me, but bluntly put, ‘I’ did not want for ‘me’ what ‘he’ wanted for ‘me’ and this is where people do not realise that they have to let people be. Initially, I attempted to explain what was on my mind, but after a while I stopped expecting people to understand me, or sensibilities like mine, because ignorance was all around me, and often arrogant and proud, so my second slice of unsolicited advise is – we each have our own life sciences that we draw from, our own insight and our independent emotional receptivity, and if you happen to fall into the similar bracket of a free mind like me that is also changing, fragile, self-doubting, then I reckon it is time you do the same too with your life: stop worrying about the ignorant and about what they think. It may hurt some, and it may annoy many more, and it may be the sternest indication of individualistic thinking, but let ‘you’ be your ‘own’ paramount, because at the end of the day it is you who will be living with yourself, and the people who’ve articulated their judgments will be found nowhere around you since that is how the world is, ready to dissect, but on the run when you truly need them.

I know the gentleman at the gym would go back speculating what the heck was on my mind to be strutting my member in public. For him it was a violation of decency, exhibitionism of sorts, for me nothing but the luxury of the coolest comfort level and confidence that I had attained a sense of enlightenment where to be in union with my own body and soul brought me unparalleled euphoria, and it was not threatening in the least, to see the nude, or be in the nude. The woman would possibly quote me to her friends at her next kitty party, and they would probably have a hearty laugh wondering what a waste I was not to have embraced her bosom, or dunked my staff between her legs, but alas, if it were naked tits I were looking for then there is no dearth of them to find near me, and this is exactly where I go back to where I began: I don’t quite care if people understand me or they don’t understand me, and this is not because I think of myself as somebody above-board, but because me, once again thinks, that people have stopped to think, and people who do not examine all things intensely and relentlessly have no room in my head or heart. Anything that is nourishing and sustainable matters to me the most, and I revere connections and conversations with those whom I want to be conjoined with, because in my fibre of life, great connections begin with great conversations, and the more naked we each are, the better it is.

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THE GENTLEMAN IN THE MIRROR

Orlando’s Penis With Some Tits Served On The Side!