Kerala woman sports a moustache, says ‘I can’t imagine living without it now’

In recent years we have seen several women celebrities, including Rihanna sharing images of themselves with body hair. Well, this is definitely a beginning to normalise body hair but even today women feel embarrassed if they have a lot of facial hair and a few of them go to huge lengths to get flawless skin.

However, a woman from Kerala has embraced her the way she is and proudly sports a moustache without caring about the racist comments that come her way.

In her WhatsApp status, right below her photo, Shyja, the 35-year-old from Kerala’s Kannur states “I love my moustache.” She has had both positive and negative comments coming her way but she seems unfazed.

A common question that people ask of her is about why she sports a moustache. “All I can say is that I just like it. A lot,” she responded in an interview with the BBC.

Though Shyja used to go to parlours to thread her eyebrows, she never felt the need to get her upper lips done. When the hair began to thicken into a visible moustache a delighted Shyja decided to keep it, as per a BBC report.

“I can’t imagine living without it now. When the Covid pandemic started, I disliked wearing a mask all the time because it covered my face,” Shyja said. “I’ve never felt that I’m not beautiful because I have this or that it’s something I shouldn’t have. I just do what I like. If I had two lives, maybe I’d live one for others.”

Some of Shyja’s confidence may come from having battled health problems for years. She underwent six surgeries over a decade. Doctors removed a lump in her breast, cysts in her ovary and five years ago, she went through surgery was a hysterectomy to remove her uterus.

“Each time I came out of surgery, I would hope that I never had to go back into an operation theatre again,” she told the BBC.

Overcoming multiple health crises only strengthened Shyja’s belief that she should live her life in a way that makes her happy.

 

With inputs from BBC