Defined by Style

 

Style is a refinement in behaviour and the cultivation of poise. Style is expressed in the way a person walks or converses, by the cadence of language, by the spaces we choose to live in.

Style shows confidence, presence, personal power, often communicated without the need for words.  Unlike brute force, style cannot be fought with or overcome. It is a quiet challenge that does not seek a reaction. While it can be mocked, it cannot be destroyed. It is the result of a cultivated intentionality that becomes part of a personality. Style is like the softest notes of a piano or violin that the listener knows can build up to a powerful intensity that will make hearts tremble.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in February this year, and the  Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, through all the warmongering rhetoric, impressed the world with their soft spoken manner with the slight smile of the wise dealing with the foolish. No angry fist shaking. Instead we witnessed the Persian tradition of taarof, a complex, ritualized politeness, and zerangi  or shrewdness.

Persian influences in the sub-continent date back to the 6^th C, becoming first, the official language of Punjab in the 11^th century, and then across the whole region with the Mughals. Classical Urdu, while absorbing Sanskrit, Arabic and Turkish vocabulary, retained greater Persian influences, in both language and cultural expression. Etiquette required khush-asloobi,  husn e amal and andaaz e bayan, terms that reflect the preference to behave and speak  with elegance and grace. Even anger is ideally expressed as shikwa, a gentle reproach often couched in poetic terms, rather than shikayat, a direct accusation. . Iqbal wrote andaz-e-bayan garche bahut shokh nahin hai, shayad ki utar jaae tire dil men miri baat (Although I am not master of rhetoric, Perhaps my words still enter your heart).

Despite the dilution of cultural traditions across the world by colonial influences and migration, the real deflection of style came from industrialisation and the economics of mass production. With its accompanying tools of marketing and incentivising, the space for unique self-expression was reduced, offering instead carefully curated identities whose needs could be profitably manufactured.

The cult of individualism, which sounded like personal liberty, was offered to deflect attention from the loss of individuality, resulting in isolation and anonymity, severing ties to community.  

Resistance came mainly from art, including the Arts and Crafts Movement and Romanticism, that were soon marginalized as elitism - pretentious, privileged, and exclusionary. The impact was felt across the board, from reproducible city planning and architectural styles, to supplanting traditional localized entertainment with worldwide release cinema and sports federations that could be monetized.

 Yet while systems have changed, people have not. Researchers have found that by documenting eye tracking of subjects, there was a preference for decorated building facades over modern buildings with bland facades.  The exquisite muqarna ceilings of Al Hambra attract 2.6 million visitors annually.

Aesthetic pleasure is not just felt by artists, but is experienced by everyone. It could be a beautiful sunset, the formation of starlings flying in large groups, the satisfaction of arranging furniture or folding a pan into a neat gilori.

Countries where industrialization has not taken over, remain connected to the gracefulness of traditional styles: a village woman walking across parched earth with the movement of a flowing river, a man folding and turning twenty yards of muslin into an elegant turban. A young boy in a roadside tea shop has made an art of ‘meter chai’ - pouring tea from a great height. It is not just about what you do, but how you do it—with confidence, care, and a style that makes it your own.

Increasingly, the homogenizing of modernity is rejected, charged with the crime of a divided world, horrific wars, the plunder of the earth’s resources and disrupting climate balance. Across the world there is renewed interest in mud brick houses, organic food and the slow movement. In Pakistan literary and cultural traditions have been largely maintained at a community level, but they are now finding a place in the national narrative.

As the Persian poet, Hafiz Shirazi, reminds us ‘The words you speak becomes the house you live in’.  

 

Durriya Kazi

May 4, 2026

Karachi

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com