Karna Bheel. This name might not say much to you, but twenty years ago anyone who lived in Jaisalmer would know it very well. Legendary dacoit Karna Bheel , was the terror of the desert. So much so, that mothers would tell their small children to play inside homes as the gangster was on the lookout for them.

Karna Bheel had such detailed knowledge of the desert, starting from Jaisalmer and stretching into Pakistan, that the police in both India and Pakistan could not catch him try as they might. For several years, Karna Bheel eluded the grasp of the police, until his reign of terror came to an abrupt end, as he was murdered by a rival gang, and his severed head was discovered by the Indian police.

With such a father, what can one expect from Karna Bheel’s son, whom I encountered in Jaisalmer? Certainly not to be known to the world as the man with the longest mustaches, which is what he - proud feature the Guiness Book of World Records- actually is. 



During our encounter, my curiosity was piqued by his history, his choice of a "career", as well as the way he maintained his mustaches- wrapping them around his ears whenever they were not on display to tourists!



What I find truly bizarre is that the inspiration for him to choose his profession was his father! As he disclosed in our conversation, during his lifetime Karna Bheel had been inordinately proud of his finely grown mustaches - which are a symbol of valor for traditional Indian males - and familial pride in a well grown pair had led the son to make a career out of growing his mustaches - to an incredible length of two meters!



On further probing, he also revealed that once he had chosen his vocation, the habit of mustache wrapping around the ears grew with their length. Since they tended to become tangled, and act like dusters for whatever surface Karna Bheel’s son was walking on, experimentation had yielded the perfect solution- wrap ‘em around your ears!

So while the father travelled all over the Thar desert in the course of his exploits, the son has travelers from the world over come and visit him in Jaisalmer.