23 - 29 August 2001
Issue No.548
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 23 - 29 August 2001 Issue No.548 |
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Hot, with a beard
Summer brings a strange set of thoughts to my mind, mixing memory with compassion , punctuating the years' relentless forward motion as it sets the scene for a particular mood, a memorable encounter, a long-forgotten song. Of all four seasons, I always feel, it is the most paradoxical, for while it induces an inscrutable lethargy on the physical plane, the experience of summer also churns up a great number of thoughts and feelings.
Of these the most pressing relate, naturally enough, to heat: compounded by humidity, it is unbearable; air-conditioning has played no part in my life for it makes me ill and I prefer even the most polluted outdoor breeze to a mechanically mediated environment. August this year has been incredibly hot, though, and one cannot help feeling oppressed by it.
It may have coincided with summer, my letting my stubble grow, and develop into a beard. But it is not due to the heat. Rather, it is my failing eyesight that makes every shave an exercise in self-mutilation, so much so that this ordinary, unimportant part of every man's life has, for me, turned into a complicated and dreaded ordeal. Giving in to indolence, I decided I would spare myself the torture and the injury. This is how I have finally stopped shaving.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
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