One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Wearing a coat and tie is like finally arriving in the world. That’s Ranveer Singh’s experience at least.

A lobby manager in a swish residential complex in Gurugram’s Sector 54, Mr Singh sits behind a marble desk looking dapper in a smart black suit, complete with stiff collars and a striped tie.

“Until two years ago I was a head-guard in another building,” he says, “and had no tie and no coat.”

Mr Singh’s uniform used to be a simple white shirt and blue pant.

“Getting this job was a promotion,” he confesses.

At first, this 27-year-old migrant from a Rajasthan village couldn’t figure out how to tie the knot. “The kind Bishen Singh came to my rescue,” he says, referring to the previous lobby manager.

A university graduate, Mr Singh remembers feeling overwhelmed the first morning he arrived for work in the new dress. “Wearing the coat and tie was recognition of my pehchan (identity) as an educated man who left his village to build a life in the city,” he says, with a voice overcome with emotion.

Mr Singh keeps two sets of the uniform, and he always gets the precious coats dry-cleaned.

His wife, Preeti, lives back home in the village in Bharatpur and has never seen her husband in suit and tie except once—during their wedding!

“But wait, she saw me in this uniform in the photo I once sent to her on WhatsApp.”

Mrs Singh had WhatsApped back, saying, “Aap bahut achhe lagte hain (you look very nice).”

[This is the 163rd portrait of Mission Delhi project]

The sartorial memoirs of a coat-tie man

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