An Outfit That Felt Like a Deep, Calming Breath

My uncle was a professor of literature, a man who spoke in paragraphs and silences. For his 60th birthday, the family threw a large dinner. The room was a riot of colour—my aunts in brilliant pinks and oranges, my cousins in sharp, modern suits. Then he walked in. He was wearing an Off-White Raw Silk Kurta Pajama. It wasn’t white-white. It was the colour of old book pages, of warm milk with a drop of honey.

The fabric didn’t shine; it seemed to hold the light within its own gentle texture. In that vibrant room, he was the calmest point. He didn’t look dressed up; he looked distilled. I remember thinking, That’s it. That’s how a man should look when he knows who he is. I spent years, honestly, trying to find that feeling in a garment. I found it finally at Arshad Mens Wear.

It’s Not a Colour, It’s a Feeling

When I walked into Arshad Mens Wear and said I wanted an off-white raw silk, the owner, Rizwan, didn’t just point to a rack. He nodded, as if I’d given a password. “Ah. The thinking man’s colour,” he said. He brought out three bolts. One was a cool, stony off-white.

Another had a faint yellow undertone, like chai spilled on linen. The third was the one. It had the barest, most gentle warmth to it, like the inside of a seashell. “This one has life,” Rizwan said, running his hand over it. “The other two are just colours. This one is a shade.” He was right. The off-white I chose wasn’t passive.  It changed in the light from cream to beige to a soft grey. It was complex, like a person.

The Fabric That Tells You Its History

Rizwan made me close my eyes and feel the cloth. “Forget silk you know,” he said. “This is different.” Under my fingers, the fabric was substantial, almost dense. It had a roughness, but a soft roughness—like the paw of a very old, gentle dog. “Feel those little bumps?” he asked. “That’s the silk’s natural nod. They don’t iron the story out of it. This is how the worm made it.” He called it ‘tussar’ silk.

He held it up to the window. The light didn’t bounce off it; it seeped into it, making the fabric glow from within. “You wear this, you are wearing a story that began with a worm on a leaf,” he said, smiling.

The Cut is Everything (And Nothing)

I have a stubborn shoulder, a relic of a cricket injury, that makes ready-made kurtas pull and twist. I told Rizwan’s tailor, an elderly man named Saeed who spoke with pins in his mouth. He measured me not like a tailor.

He measured the slope of my “problem” shoulder, the way I carried my weight on one hip. “The cloth is noble,” Saeed said, his voice muffled by pins. “We will not make it fight your body. When I put the finished Off-White Raw Silk Kurta Pajama on, I understood. It didn’t “fit” in the modern, tight sense. It moved with me. The shoulder lay perfectly flat. It was the first piece of clothing that didn’t feel like it was judging my posture.

How to Wear It Without “Trying”

This is the crucial part. With an outfit this quiet, you can kill it by trying too hard. I brought a heavy antique gold chain. Rizwan took one look and hid it behind his counter. “Please, no,” he laughed. He draped a simple, undyed khadi shawl over one shoulder. He handed me a pair of plain brown leather mojaris. “Now look,” he said, turning me to the mirror. The off-white kurta was the star. The brown and beige accessories were just the supporting cast. I didn’t look “fancy.” I looked considered. I looked authentic. The lesson was powerful: When the cloth is this good, your only job is to not get in its way.

The Ritual of Keeping It

After the first wear (to a poetry reading, where I felt perfectly at peace), I panicked. How do you keep something this colour pristine? I went back to Rizwan. “Don’t fear it,” he said. He gave me a cotton bag with a zip. “Wash? No. Good dry cleaner, yes. Keep it in this. No plastic. It needs to breathe.” He said the off-white would mellow with age, not stain, if cared for properly. “This will be your uniform for good things,” he said. “It will remember all the good conversations you had in it.” Caring for it didn’t feel like a chore. It felt like tending to a friendship.

An Armour of Serenity

I wore the Off-White Raw Silk Kurta Pajama from Arshad Mens Wear to a high-pressure business meeting with potential investors. Everyone else was in sharp, dark suits. I walked in feeling a moment of doubt. Was I underdressed? Then I sat down, the heavy, soft silk settling around me. I felt a wave of that same calm my uncle had.

I was there as myself, grounded and sure. The cloth was my armour, not of aggression, but of serene confidence. We got the deal. I don’t think the kurta did it, but I know it let me be the man who could. That’s what they sell at Arshad Mens Wear. Not clothes. A quieter, better version of yourself.