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Mayank Bhatt had to shave his beard and moustache to get a job; he still doesn’t have a job but he looks much younger than what he did six months ago.
Special / By Mayank Bhatt
“Mr. Bhatt, have you considered being clean shaven?” The young employment counselor at Acces, Mississauga, asked me without thinking whether she should be asking me such a personal question.
“I…hmm..I..why?” I couldn’t manage a coherent response.
The nubile employment counselor continued: “You see Mr. Bhatt they don’t give jobs in Canada to people who look like homeless hobos.”
“Oh!...well…ahh..hmm..Oh!” I stuttered again.
The lissome employment counselor went in for the kill: “In any case, your grey hair and beard make you look much older than your age.” She checked the form to see my age. “You’re in your mid-40s, but you look like you’re nearing retirement age. As an employment strategy you should think of removing your facial hair.”
I came out of the meeting mystified. I narrated to Mahrukh what transpired inside the room. She cackled. Wives can be so cruel.
After couple of months of despondency – when frayed tempers and crushed egos contributed to a loss of confidence and direction – both Mahrukh and I decided that we have to get any job to survive in our new homeland. I began to work with an energy company and my pay was to be a percentage of sales.
For 10 days in August of 2008, I travelled across the GTA. Every day, I would knock the doors of at least 50 homes.
What surprised me was the reaction of people – all of them were Caucasian Canadians – to my appearance.
As I was being trained, I was asked to accompany a certain Hector; an immigrant just as I was but who had been here much longer. Hector seemed like a regular guy. And by that I mean regular as understood in this part of the world.
In South Asia Hector would be mistaken for a sage or a seer, what with his blond (I kid you not, that was the colour of his hair) dreadlocks, and his very casual dress sense. But here, at every door we knocked, people talked to him engagingly and with effervescence.
I wore regimentation clothes – black trousers, white shirt, a tie and dress shoes. I stood politely by the door as Hector spoke. But every time there was a pause in the conversation the homeowner would look in my direction and give an involuntary shudder.
The two days I was with Hector, he made only one sale, Hector informed our supervisor Misha about this, and Misha promptly assigned me to Mario, an Italian immigrant who looked like Luca Brazi from the Godfather, albeit with glasses.
He had made an awesome reputation of being the highest earner in this business where even the best had to toil. A day after I was with Mario, he, too, complained.
Misha asked us to meet at Tim Hortons the next morning. And, as would any good salesman, came to the point without even so much as a “May I…”
“You know Maniac (very few people in Canada actually pronounce my name right but that’s a different story and let it not detain us right now), I think right now you look like an Arab terrorist, ageing, but terrifying to these Canadians. You should shave off your facial hair. I think that will make you less distinct and more acceptable.”
“But Misha, I’ve had a beard for more than two decades…” I tried to explain, Misha, the tough-talking Russian, had the last word: “Maniac, you want to stay with our group, you shave.”
So, I quit.
The thought stayed with me. How would I look without a beard? I had started growing a beard when I was in my teens. It was a part of my personality; a signature of radicalism initially and liberalism later. Beard was an integral part of my being.
I consulted Mahrukh again. “If you want to do it, go right ahead,” she said.
Then, one evening in middle of August, after having moved out of Malton (in Mississauga, but could easily be a part of Sarnala district in the Punjab), and into Toronto at the intersection of Keele and Lawrence Avenue West, I went down to Wal-Mart, bought shaving cream and razor, came home and began to shave. My son Che was given the task to record the momentous event.
Mahrukh and Che looked at me with a mixture of amusement and bemusement. Mahrukh sent my photograph to my mother, who didn’t recognize me at all.
That is the story of the momentous step to change my looks. I still don’t have a proper job, but I feel better, and look younger than I did six months ago.
It’s often made me wonder why people give such importance to appearances. Why is it that homogenization – of looks, language, values and culture – so necessary to get a suitable employment opportunity in a society that takes pride in its multiculturalism?
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