VideoslCaravanninglBloglTravellBookslGift VoucherslDuke of Edinburgh's AwardlShop by BrandlSign up to our emailsThe brand was established in November 2009 by two high school friends, Varun Agarwal and Rohan M, who initially printed sweatshirts for their own school. “We first printed shirts with our school logo. But the response was so tremendous that we realised this could be a business opportunity,” Varun said. The duo has already launched a website and supplies sweatshirts for schools like Baldwin Girls’ High School, Bishop Cotton Girls’ School, Sophia High School and Vidya Niketan School. The sweatshirts are priced at Rs525 a piece. The venture has also started supplying T-shirts for college fests. Alma Mater also provides customised T-shirts. For the Baldwin girl students of the batch of 2010, the group offered T-shirts with the names of all the 200 girls in the shape of ‘2010’. There is rare meticulousness that goes into the work done by Alma Mater. “We don’t compromise on the quality of our products.

The chocolate-brown colour of the uniform of Sophia’s was difficult to locate. So, we did not accept orders until we found the right colour,” Varun said. Advertising of the service is done over social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook.  The brand now has more than 1,500 fans on Facebook. “I heard about the product from friends in college. The garment quality and quick delivery options have made it so popular,” said Akshata Chitlangia, a final-year student at RVCE. “Schools and colleges do not always offer merchandise with their logos. It’s nice to have something that marks us out in the crowd. These products can be picked up online, so it is easy to get them. During a recent visit to the airport, I spotted at least five people wearing our school sweatshirts,” said Pranay Reddy, a former student of Bishop Cotton Boys’ High School.They are also a walking refutation of the theory that Indians and Pakistanis, Hindus and Muslims, can never mix comfortably together.

This has been their best year to date. Bopanna, from India, and Qureshi, from Pakistan, reached the final of the US Open in September, before carrying off their first Masters title in Paris last weekend. And yet, it is their taboo-bending partnership, rather than their results, that tends to draw most attention. On the subcontinent, they are barely known by their real names, but by the catchy title ‘Indo-Pak Express’. 221b hoodieAnd they have a slogan too: “Stop war, start tennis”, which you can find on T-shirts and hoodies marketed by an Indian clothing company. stab proof hoodies for saleUltimately, their plan is to stage a match on the border between the two countries. pink dolphin hoodie boo“We started as tennis players and friends,” Qureshi said. assassins hoodie cz

“But we became ambassadors for the Peace And Sport organisation [a Monaco-based body putting sport at the heart of local development projects in communities in crisis around the world] and that has made us realise that we can influence other people’s lives as well. “Now people know what the Indo-Pak Express stands for, and it is really good to be identified and recognised as a tennis team. behemoth hoodie ukNormally only the individuals in tennis get recognised – the Roger Federer's and the Rafael Nadal's – and there are just a very small handful of doubles teams that people know about.” hba clothing philippines priceOne of those teams is the all-Indian partnership of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, who will also be in action at the O2 Arena for the ATP World Tour Finals, which start on Sunday. rohan hoodie

Paes and Bhupathi are the sort of role models who have helped tennis become India’s second-favourite sport, behind cricket. Pakistan has less of a tradition in the game. The racket sport of choice used to be squash, a discipline in which Jahangir Khan and his namesake Jansher led the world through the 1980s and 1990s. But in Qureshi’s view, the unrepeatable dominance of the two Khans has worked against the next generation. “The number of tournaments those guys won, it would be something like having 10 Wimbledon titles,” he says. “People feel that in order to be recognised they have to do better, and they are not ready for that.” Qureshi himself has a strong tennis pedigree. His maternal grandfather, Adil Mansoor Tipu, was All-Indian champion before Partition, while his mother won the national title no fewer then 10 times. Now, since becoming the first Pakistani player to reach a grand slam final, Qureshi is figuring more and more prominently on sports pages and news bulletins.

For sports fans disillusioned by the Pakistan cricket team’s betrayal in the spot-fixing affair, he is a wholesome alternative. “It’s going to be strange to play in London when those guys [Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir] are there in the prison,” Qureshi says. “I just have to take care of myself and try to send a positive message about my country. “With Rohan beside me, I’ll do my best to have my country’s flag raised high, I will be the first Pakistani or Muslim to play the ATP World Tour Finals, and I am very proud of that, because it is my goal to open doors for the next generation. “We have so much talent, and the only way I can get our government to start thinking about tennis is to play in the big tournaments. That is one of the reasons I switched to doubles – to make it to the best events. And it has worked because things are changing. A lot of parents are making their children play now, and I hope it can become one of the biggest sports in Pakistan soon.”