COLLIDING WORLDS

Meet the IAS officer who plays an IAS officer in Delhi Crime 2

- ANJULY MATHAI

A man sitting hunched amidst a pile of files in a dusty office, 40 and flatulent, probably with heart issues. If this is your idea of an IAS officer, it is certainly not who Abhishek Singh is. If his Instagram page is any indication, the 2011-batch officer seems to be living a glossy life. In one photograph, he looks dapper in a grey suit at an iftar party hosted by former MLA Baba Siddiqui. In another, he pouts into the camera in a selfie with fashion designer Manish Malhotra, along with a posse of beautiful people who seem like they walked out of a bumper issue of Vogue. In a third, he is seated in a settee with actor Suniel Shetty, both smiling as though they had just won the lottery to health, wealth and happiness.

“Generally, people think that if you are doing serious work, you should look serious,” says the 31-year-old civil servant. “They think that is how one looks responsible. But the truth is, a person will look responsible by the work he is delivering. Not by the expression on his face.”