I bumped into a distant nephew at a recent wedding - though "bumped into" is a generous term, as I initially mistook him for a pile of discarded upholstery.

He was sporting a hairstyle resembling a bird's nest after a cyclone, and his jeans were so shredded I genuinely reached for my wallet to offer a donation for basic clothing. When I asked if he had been chased by a stray dog, he sighed with the weary patience of a saint: "It's distressed streetwear, Uncle." The only thing "distressed" in the room was his grandmother's blood pressure.

For millennia, the Indian standard of grooming was high-maintenance excellence. We are the land of Shringar, of sandalwood paste, perfectly pleated saris and hair oiled so precisely it could reflect a laser beam. Even village elders in starched dhotis looked ready for a royal portrait. But today, we are witnessing a voluntary race to look ugly. We have traded the kurta for T-shirts that look like they were used to mop a garage floor and replaced the classic side-parting with a "shabby chic" look that screams, "I haven't used a comb since the lockdown."

The hippies of the 1960s were protesting against wars; today's rebels seem to be resisting the very concept of aesthetics. We see hair dyed in shades of radioactive green that make Holi look dull. Piercings have migrated from the graceful traditional nose-ring to a plethora of studs that give airport security sensors a nervous breakdown. Tattoos, once sacred or tribal, are now "minimalist" ink that looks like a leaky fountain pen has exploded on a forearm.

The Indian mother's great nightmare used to be her son looking like a lafanga. Today, the lafanga look costs Rs 50,000 and a trip to a high-end salon. The justification is "self-expression", but if everyone is expressing themselves by wearing unwashed, oversized sacks, aren't they all just clones of the same mess? We have discarded the "Good Boy" image so violently that we have landed squarely in the "Just out of bed" category.