New t-shirt designers: Putting the I back in India

These are the signs and messages from a group of (mostly) young t-shirt designers, who are in touch with their Indianness, are proud of it but like to reinvent it too. Most use the internet to find their customers and create communities around the causes they support, as well as a distribution channel and sometimes even as a medium to involve people in the design process. Here's a look at irreverent and iconic Indian symbols and colloquialisms, where to get them and the people behind all this cleverness. 

I in India: Neil Dantas 

Neil Dantas, being the responsible, giving-back sort of Mumbaiker that he is, thought t-shirts were an awesome way to voice his civic opinions. A reaction to the 7/11 local train blasts in Mumbai became a collection tagged "We are still holding on," over an image of typical local train handles. As Dantas found his way to speak out, he gave his wearers even more of a platform. T-shirts that were part of the Speak Mumbai Speak collection, had a mouth within a map of the state, connected to an empty speech bubble. Dantas says: "We can’t take out terrorist ourselves, or even rid the city of its beggars, but we can make our opinions heard." 

His t-shirts are born at the home of The Doers (a blog and design community of people who "do and do good"), and in this online space Dantas finds more and more topics to talk about, from the mundane to the world changing -- smoking, public transport, global warming or the idea of non-vegetarian food. The entire city is Dantas' mood board, playing a lot with typography. "I saw a guy wearing an 'I am Marathi' tee and it hit me. In the context of the whole Shiv Sena debacle, I realized I love my city because I was born here. But above that I am also proud to be a part of the globe and the country. That’s where 'I In India' t-shirt came from," he explains. 

With designs that include an equals sign (responding to local politician Raj Thackery's Mumbai for Maharashtrians only ideology) and the share index "SenSex (making the Sensex sexy)", Dantas wants locals to rethink their city and tourists to go back to their countries with a piece of contemporary India.

Neil Dantas retails at the Attic boutique in Santacruz. You can also drop the designer a line online to order.

Indigreen: Nidhi Singh and Gaurav Gupta

Ecoprenuers Singh and Gupta are pushing their cause of a greener, cleaner earth through Indigreen’s t-shirts invoking the simplicity of Indian village life with 100 percent Indian and 100 percent green products, using Indian chemical-free, fair trade organic cotton. "Environment degradation and climate change are hot topics. But only the corporate, globe trotters really know what it’s about. The aam janta (people living in poverty) isn't aware of these things," explains Singh. 

The duo, (one a former journalist and one an ecoprenuer, both based in Bengaluru) use this very visual medium, infused with pop culture references to talk about the plundering of natural resources. "We have to make it cool," says Singh of their Bollywood-inspired t-shirt line, "otherwise young people are going to be like, whatever!" So, iconic symbols from Bollywood in the 1930s and 1940s and truck and rickshaw art are often the visual vehicles for their messages.

So, while going green Bollywood style has filmi dialogue reinterpreted as, "Yeh Earth mujhe de de Thakur" and "Mere paas dharti maa hai", the go green desi style includes common catch phrases to ward off the evil eye such as "kahin nazar naa lag jaaye Dharti Maa Ko" (on a nimbu mirchi), "buri nazar waale, tera muh hara" (on an auto) and "Green Ok Please" (behind a truck). 

Indigreen retails at Bombay Electric, Ayamik  and Tribal Route in Mumbai, besides Just around the Corner in Delhi and Earthworm in Goa.

Paani Puri: Rish Oberoi and Eureka

Born and bred in the United States, Rish Oberoi moved to India from Wall Street after falling victim to the credit crunch. After a nine month honeymoon period getting to know his motherland, an idea hit him for a clothing brand based on a sudden craving for a particular street food -- paani puri -- while watching Batman at 3 am. "It was a late night kind of brainwave. Just a randomly funny joke I thought of, and the minute it was humanly okay to call someone, I spoke to my then friend and now partner Eureka," says Oberoi. 

Oberoi toyed with the idea of ice-cream versus paani puri for a name. But after taking a shotgun survey accosting people outside a cinema hall, the 28-year-old realized that street food was the perfect symbol for their new business. "It’s all about reinventing the paani puri. So you can have paani puris on a tree instead of leaves, instead of bubbles from a bubble machine or the Joker eating a paani puri," explained the entrepreneur, laughing. "The whole idea was just to have fun and put paani puri in different circumstances."

By tapping into India’s contemporary art scene, Oberoi and Eureka want Paani Puri to represent artists who really pour their heart into what they do in representing a contemporary India. An India that is moving like America was 20 years ago, but way faster. What’s more, they love inputs, even if you aren’t an artist. Have an awesome idea? Paani Puri might give it life.

Paani Puri t-shirts will retail soon from stores in Mumbai. Till then check out www.paanipuriclothing.com or their Facebook page.

Inkfruit: Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai

If there was an award for most democratic t-shirt design company it would have to go to the guys at Inkfruit. This three year-old company, run by 28 year old IITians Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai, is a concept that involves you (the people) from the beginning to end of t-shirt designing. "When we started the website (in 2007), we were looking at mediums like Youtube and Flikr that involved people. Inkfruit is basically about getting people involved in the design and then voting on what is popular and making that available," explains Dalal. 

The brand has since then gone from basic website to a community of 200,000 people, 20,000 designers and products in 300 offline locations. Every month a competition is held on anything from a current topic to random musings, with inputs from members of Inkfruit. From the approximately 5,000 designs that are submitted, 15 get printed on tees, mugs and other knickknacks. 

This dynamic model expresses a need for self-expression particularly relevant in India today. "We get inputs on everything from voting, saving the planet and Earth Hour (the latest collection) to the Indian Premier League or any ongoing scandal, trend or news item," says Dalal. They feel the young in India want to protest against things they don’t agree with, like the shirt which called out arbitrary governance on how it was wrong to kiss in public but okay to pee. 

Latest news on Inkfruit competitions and their t-shirts are available online at www.inkfruit.com

1469: Harinder and Kirandeep Kaur

Harinder’s insistence to talk to me in Punjabi sums up the store’s entire vibe and aesthetic. 1469 insists on being Punjabi and spreading a message of Punjabiness and everything that is synonymous with Punjab. With an auspicious name which is the birth year of Guru Nanak, Sikhism's very first guru, Harinder says they want to "make people happy". The couple, Harinder and Kirandeep Kaur (37 and 42) who have been graphic designers since before it was trendy (since 25 years), realized the need for some "mirch masala" in the t-shirt market.

With Pure Punjabi, Mein Gabru Des Punjab Da, Sadke Jaavan, Vekhi Ja Pher Cheri Na, Proud by Birth Sikh by Choice, anyone who understands even a couple of words of Punjabi, can't miss the humour of these everyday colloquialisms. And it’s not just Punjabi speaking people they cater to. Harinder says the "goras" (white folk) beat the Indians 10 to two in the number of tees they pick on one run. Trucks, Bajaj scooters and rickshaws are some other much loved t-shirt icons. 

The couple want to make young Indians feel a sense of pride in their country, make the older ones feel young and promote the national hockey team. The latter cause is especially close to their hearts. They're donating their t-shirts to the hockey team in an attempt to wean the players off the Adidas and Reeboks of the world and onto something more individual. 

Available at 1469 shops in Shop No. 8, Defence Colony Market, New Delhi; tel. +91 (0) 11 41556393, 65387733 and Shop No 8 and 12, Janpath, Connaught Place, New Delhi; tel. +91 (0) 11 23329461 or email kirandeep@1469workshop.com

Play Clan: Illum band of designers

Doodling had a mini-revolution two and a half years ago when Play Clan burst into the market in a riot of psychedelic colours, scribbles, font explorations and hyper doodles.  A team of designers known ominously as The Clan embellished everything in a medley of color and creative expression. This design army came across as a nameless, faceless entity under founder Himanshu Dogra. 

An offshoot of Dogra's design firm Illum Designs, everything takes its inspiration from the city of Delhi, with a touch of humor and lots of spirit. "Everything around us inspires us. And tees are a great way to connect with the whole idea of wearing your personal identity on you." Using graffiti, surface treatments, texturing through yars, and printing, they create new themes from everyday mundane things, and make them burst with fun psychodelia. From Naga Sadhus and truck art to traffic jams, anything inspires.

"We aren’t supposed to be a designer brand. And our stuff is like a square bicycle. It's not the output that matters, but the process that was involved in making it. If it works, then great. If it doesn’t, then what the hell. At least you had fun!" quips Dogra.

Order Play Clan t-shirts online at shop.theplayclan.com