Taken September 5, 2013

India is the last bastion of the luxuriant mustache as a font of machismo. While the thick, droopy stache may have fallen out of favor with male porn stars and deep South State Troopers, it remains emblematic in Bollywood.

One day, when the Freddie Mercury mustache returns to its former glory, Indian men will be able to hold their heads high, certain in the knowledge that they never abandoned the stache.

It should be noted that the power of the stache goes way back here. On the elaborately towering Hindu temples, one will see such figures. I have yet to learn which deity sports the stache (often along with a pot belly,) but it’s not Ron Jeremy–that much I know for certain.