The Lost Art Of Carrying A Handkerchief

Growing up, my father never left the house without three things: wallet, keys, and a handkerchief. The first two were functional, the last was ritual.

The handkerchief was always white. It always have two thin blue lines running on the side. The “hanky” was always folded twice – never rolled, never stuffed – and slid into his front left pocket with the familiarity of muscle memory.

On summer mornings, before the heat could settle on the city, he’d take out the handkerchief to wipe his forehead, smooth the cloth, fold it back neatly, and continue. It was an extension of him: cotton, clean, reliable. When I stained my hands eating chocolates in the park, I knew I could always hold my hand out. When my brother fell and his knee bled, the hanky kept the blood from oozing out.

The handkerchief was never a topic of conversation, never a thing to announce. It was simply part of being a grown man, like giving up your seat for elders or keeping a straight blade lying around somewhere “just in case.” I’d see my father use his handkerchief for everything: wiping his face on humid Delhi afternoons, cleaning the lenses of his glasses, wrapping a hot steel container during travel, even offering it to someone else — a gesture that carried a certain tenderness men rarely expressed in words.

My grandfather was even more particular. His handkerchiefs were always ironed, always smelling faintly of sandalwood soap from the drawer where he kept them. He would never, ever use tissue paper. For him, the handkerchief wasn’t an accessory; it was a mark of preparedness — a quiet code of being a well-put-together man. There was dignity, even gentleness, in that tiny square of fabric.

Today, the handkerchief has almost vanished. Some men carry a tissue, maybe. Some don’t carry anything at all, relying on restroom paper towels or the back of their hands. In offices, gyms, restaurants, malls — places that once saw the quick, polite flick of a handkerchief — we now see the crinkle of single-use tissues or, worse, the casual sniff.

But the handkerchief is more than a piece of cotton. It was once a social tool. A man would offer his hanky to a crying friend, a bleeding child, a stranger in need — a gesture that said: I’m here, I’m prepared, I can help.

When I watched old Hindi films, it was practically symbolism; a hero offered his handkerchief to the damsel in distress and this is how they fell in love. Even in our homes, the hanky was part of a morning routine — picked from the clothesline, pressed, stacked, selected.

What makes its disappearance interesting is not the death of a garment, but the death of a habit. The handkerchief demanded maintenance: washing, drying, ironing. It asked you to care for something that would, in turn, care for you. There’s an intimacy in using something that absorbs your sweat, your tears, your breath — a physical closeness that’s almost unthinkable in our hyper-sanitised age. Wet wipes promise convenience, disposability, sterility. They’re practical, yes — but also impersonal. You throw them away not long after you touch them.

And let’s be honest: the handkerchief was never just about hygiene. It was about identity. There was the crisp white office hanky, the coloured checked one for schoolboys, the delicate embroidered ones some men kept tucked inside suit pockets for “formal” emergencies.

We’ve lost that. We’ve lost the small elegance of having something you keep, wash, fold, and use again. Something that ages with you. Something that absorbs not just sweat but memory.

I don’t expect men to suddenly abandon tissues and rediscover handkerchiefs. Times change, fabrics evolve, lives get faster. But I can’t shake the sense that in losing the hanky, we’ve lost a tiny ritual of gentleness — one that made us just a little more attentive, a little more prepared, a little more human.

Every now and then, when I visit my parents, I still see my father come home with a handkerchief. He doesn’t think of it as an act of rebellion or an aesthetic choice. It’s simply what he does. When he’s at home, he places it on the side table before changing clothes. In that moment, the day’s fatigue sits in that little square of cloth — the sweat, the dust, the evidence that he lived fully in his skin.