A Quest for Greatness

The meteoric rise of Jaywalking-as the homegrown streetwear brand to flaunt-might seem like it occurred overnight. Yet as founder Jay Jajal reveals, his whole life has led to this moment. And he's only just begun crafting his legend.

- SALONI DHRUV

WHILE WE'RE SHARING a couple of pints at Toit in central Mumbai, Jay Jajal suddenly grabs his phone and takes a picture of my glass. He tells me that he does this a lot, holding up his phone and showing me the Notes app. His digital diary has hundreds of images and entries-a compilation of personal moments captured over 14 years. "I can tell you what I was doing last year on any particular date, or when I met someone for the first time," he says, scrolling through the endless stream of thoughts and musings. A few hours later, Jajal sends the photo to me. "I saw an interesting pattern," he captions the cropped image, magnifying the layer of froth on the side of the glass. He follows this up with a short video clip of him tracing that pattern and turning it into an abstract print-a skull on fire-for a T-shirt.

This is exactly how Jajal operates-swiftly and instinctively. It's how his clothing label, Jaywalking, has become one of the most sought-after Indian streetwear brands in the country in a mere four years. Walk into a coffee shop in suburban Mumbai and you're likely to spot a couple of college students in Jaywalking T-shirts. Go to a bar or a gig in any corner of the country and you'll see a handful of people in Jaywalking's baggy fits. From Jacqueline Fernandez to Ranveer Singh to Ayushmann Khurrana, Jaywalking has snuck into Bollywood closets too.

Today, Jajal, 29, shuttles between his three stores (two in Mumbai and one in Delhi), while setting up a fourth in Ahmedabad-an underrated and untapped territory according to him-as well as his new 3,500-square-foot workspace in Lower Parel, Mumbai.