What's on your shirt, dear?

It may have happened to you May be more than once You pass by a man or woman wearing a message Tshirt which is cheeky corny or unintelligible perhaps one which even reads lsquoFasting And Not Furiousrsquo or lsquoI May Find My Prince But My Dad Will Always Be My Kingrsquo You roll your eyes or chuckle and swear that you wouldnrsquot be caught dead in itGrant Davisrsquo photographs of men wearing message Tshirts Delhibased HindiUrdu translator Grant Davis however often does a double take Then takes his iPhone out and requests the wearer mostly men in his case to pose for a photograph In fact he often spends some evening huntings similar subjects down near Jama Masjid in Old DelhiYou never know where one funny Tshirt can take you after all mdash Delhibased filmmaker Grant DavisDavis 27 then uploads the photographs on his website as part of his pet project Nice Shirt Dear Call it an Indian street fashion archive or an attempt to understand street philosophy as Davis likes to puts it Nice Shirt Dear is one quirky repository of all things extraordinary you might find on that regular passerby on the streets of the countryStreet styleIn January this year Davis cofounded his creative research agency Dear and has been actively involved in content creation and documentaries on India He takes it all back to his fascination for Bollywood as he grew up in New York ldquoI later met a friend who was pursuing his masters in Urdu literature Thatrsquos the first time I felt I could actually make a living out of what enamours me most and I studied Hindi and Urdu at the American Studies Centre for Urdu which required me to take trips to Lucknow too After my studies the way ahead was clear mdash come to India and get involved with the countryrsquos cultures and stories and have a creative career out of itrdquo says Davis over the telephone from DelhiIn Delhirsquos lanesDavisrsquo work often involves pounding the pavement for reference photographs of signage and typography and looking for other design elements for projects Soon he began noticing the sheer number of men wearing Tshirts with sometimeshilarioussometimesphilosophical messages on them ldquoThese message Tshirts are ubiquitous and make such a strong fashion statement but they have never been archived or discussed on large platformsrdquo he says Davis has clicked photographs on the streets of Delhi Chennai Gujarat Uttar Pradesh and MumbaiThe name of the archive and his company came from the fixation Davis noticed many of his Indian friends have with the word lsquodearrsquo ldquoIrsquove had countless Facebook conversations and friend requests where people say lsquoHi dearrsquo lsquoHow are you doing dearrsquo which I admit never fails to make me smile The name is just a commentary on the way we speak hererdquo says DavisAll the good menWhen it comes to conversations with his subjects Davis says he meets both the laconic and garrulous ldquoFor a lot of guys I meet the Tshirts donrsquot mean anything mdash they wear it for purely utilitarian reasons and donrsquot even know what the message means A few wear it because they think it is cool and sums up the motto of their life in a way What fascinates me the most about this exercise is how varied reactions can be to one simple Tshirt Some of my subjects think the messages are deeply meaningful while others think they are downright negative Some of them when I single them out for a photograph look down at their Tshirts and ask me if it is something funny Once I photographed a guy wearing a straw hat with a bow and a Tshirt which said lsquoIf I Look Funny Itrsquos Because Daddy Dressed Mersquo and he said he and his group of friends bought these together and were sporting them for fun These experiences and conversation sum up street philosophy so wellrdquoApart from the subjects themselves Davis says he is also surprised at peoplersquos reaction to his archive He has earned his share of brickbats when a viewer accused him of mocking the guys wearing these Tshirts On the other hand when Davis put up a photograph of a Tshirt with a puzzle to solve many viewers got involved trying to solve it online ldquoIt was amazing to know that one Tshirt worn by someone you will never know has such an effectrdquo says DavisIn the coming months he says he would like to explore this subject go behind the scenes and see where these message Tshirts are produced and who exactly designs them ldquoThere has to be a back story to this explosion in street fashion and Irsquod love to get involved Thanks to this archive I now have friends in the streets whom I may not have known otherwise Some have directed me to the bazaar near Jama Masjid where these Tshirts are sold widely while one actually took his own Tshirt off in the middle of the street and handed it to me because I said I liked itrdquo remembers Davis chuckling fondlyldquoYou never know where one Tshirt can take you after allrdquo he saysLog on to wwwniceshirtdearcom kareenagiananimiddaycom