Searching for the stylish.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Are you classy? Have you read Marcel Proust and Munshi Premchand? Can you distinguish Bach from Beethoven? Do you feel joy listening to Raag Malhar? Do you feel a connection to Amrita Shergil’s paintings? Can you draw Urdu calligraphy? Do you long for Louis Armstrong’s raspy voice? Do you have cookbooks in your private library? Do you visit the city’s ruins?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

No, not enough. Perhaps it doesn’t even matter. To be called classy, you must possess a certain something in your air and manner of walking, in the tone of your voice, in your address and expressions, or the word will be half deserved. And your clothes?

They need not be barcoded showroom stuff. But whatever you wear, whatever accessories you carry, they must strike a poetry with all the elements of design. The colour, the clothe, the body and also the weather must make you glow with your naturalness.

The Delhi Walla is looking for the city’s truly classy people. Their will be faux pas. But we will aspire to something close to perfection.