NOEL ELLIS' GOOGLE BLOG

  Some of my classmates in Sainik School had started shaving quite early. Before moving for breakfast and the school assembly, our turnout and nails were checked in real earnest by the housemasters, shave was not one of them.   There used to be a rumour then that if you trimmed your beard, it would grow very fast. “Look innocent,” we would say, and request the barber to use only a trimmer rather than a razor and leave some beard. A few of our classmates had no beard at all, while some had grey hair from a very early age.   Be that as it may, we reached NDA and life turned upside down. The day you hadn’t shaved, you were on the drill square for extra drill and drills far beyond your imagination.   While in the NDA Wing, I used to generally be the early one in the washroom. There were not many things in hand besides a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a razor and a ‘coochi’, or shaving brush. The shaving foam used to come in a container that looked like a b...