Esquire India's First Weekly Newsletter Is Here

It will soon be two years since the launch of Esquire in India. Our aim was to create a unique and rich world of style, culture, ideas and phenomenal people, and to take that world to our readers wherever they are. That ambition has since grown across print, digital, events and experiences.

And now, because we’re all in our inboxes all the time, we’re bringing Esquire there too.

Today, we are excited to launch Esquire India’s first weekly newsletter. I’d like you to think of it as a curated edit of what you should pay attention to, with topics ranging from fashion, culture, entertainment, grooming, food, design to all the new movements shaping our universe. Each week, you’ll receive a newsletter-exclusive original story alongside highlights from our print and digital editions.

First up is our September print cover star interview with Anil Kapoor, whose energy and hunger for reinvention remain as compelling as ever. Also worth your time: a look at how Indian men are finding their way back to jewellery, the draw of Mahjong for men and what the rise of reality television says about our collective appetite for spectacle.

In the weeks to come, expect interesting personalities, sharp opinion pieces, stories which stand out and make you ponder. Consider this our weekly catch-up with you, which I hope you’ll look forward to as much as we do.

Rahul Gangwani

Editor, Esquire India

What the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry has lost and why I want the petty old days back

By Prannay Pathak

I guess every sport deserves its share of drama. Something for us viewers to take offense or snigger at. Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest. Hikaru Nakamura tossing Gukesh Dommaraju’s King into the crowd after defeating the Indian Grandmaster. Even the face Ishant Sharma made at Steve Smith.

What we do not want—and are really not interested in—is that Instagram post delivering this kind of news: Bangladesh Women’s cricket captain Nigar Sultana refused to shake hands with her Indian counterpart.

Of late, news about cricket teams declining perfectly ordinary sporting gestures has dominated our attention a bit more than we asked for. On September 13, after beating Sri Lanka in the final of the 2026 Asia Cup, the Indian women’s team was in the news for refusing to accept an Asia Cup trophy from Asian Cricket Council President Mohsin Naqvi, much like the Indian men’s team last year.

That’s how I found out we had won the tournament. And immediately, social media users climbed aboard the Ideological Messaging trucks on social media and began lobbying keyboard grenades: ‘fitting response’, ‘insult to injury’, ‘humiliation continues’.

I remember there being a time when the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry used to be about purer emotions. A more genuine experience and articulation of anger at what went on at the border or in the mutual animosity arising from cross-border terrorism.

Even the fights and heat made for entertainment unadulterated by mediated hate. Aamir Sohail exchanging ugly words with Venkatesh Prasad after smashing him over extra cover and then getting owned next ball. Shoaib Akhtar needling Virender Sehwag and being asked to say the same thing to his “father”—the man on the other end, Sachin Tendulkar. Javed Miandad “monkey-jumping” in a performance of sheer annoyance at Kiran More’s chatter behind the stumps.

But what made those rivalries compelling was that they stayed on the field. There was also respect, and camaraderie. In 2022, members of the Indian women’s team got together at the Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui, in New Zealand, after India beat Pakistan in the World Cup league stage. They went up to meet Pakistan’s captain Bismah Maroof, who had recently become a mother, and her infant daughter Fatima. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Varma huddled around Maroof to play, cuddle and sing songs to the baby, pictures of which expectedly went all over social media.

Former India men’s captain Virat Kohli, too, shared a warm bond with Pakistan quick Mohammad Amir. The two were often seen chatting at practice whenever the two sides squared off, with Kohli publicly lauding Amir’s skills and gifting him bats. Returning after a five-year spot-fixing ban, Amir, too, reciprocated with acknowledgement of the India great’s prowess. When Pakistan were bowled out for 83 in a 2016 Asia Cup game, the intensity between them was fierce as they both set about closing the game for their teams.

Something similar happened between Jasprit Bumrah and Shaheen Afridi, when the India pacer, returning to national duty for the 2023 Asia Cup, after the birth of his son, was surprised by a gift box from his Pakistani counterpart. The gesture was televised widely as Afridi and Bumrah exchanged words of warmth behind the boundary line.

The India-Pakistan rivalry is more than these moments of affection, which we with an internal tear or two realise to have lost never to gain. It is so many things at once. The clash of their bowling prowess and our batting legacy. Their frayed display of aggression and our fabled capability to outwit and overcome them. Their head-to-head record in bilateral internationals, our long-standing unbeaten record in World Cups. And the lore of TV smashing associated with it that even inspired advertisements. All a cultural manifestation of a legendary hate-f**k.

India and Pakistan have never had a steady equation of amity in the eight decades of our existence. But throughout this troubled state of affairs, the battleground of cricket has reached us with a flavour of interest and absence of third-party intervention. We were angry, bitter and hateful on our own. Today, it comes with the excessive burden of opinion and identity. Unlike earlier, when the controversy dealt strictly with the game and what happened on-field, we’re blindsided by factors we have no direct view to. The constant demand for offense-taking and moral drama is heavy and it feels tiring.

We’ve wondered if this is a stance the cricketers have taken themselves or been asked to follow. Then should we even be playing with a sporting team representing a country we’re geopolitically in a state of hostility and now in a status of near-zero trade with? And if we should be, how ethical or straightforward it is to continue participating in a tournament presided over by someone whose authority we have chosen not to acknowledge? 

Those are not questions I am interested in as a sports fan. I want to know more about Shree Charani’s spell in the final. I want to remember the time when Virat Kohli, way past his phenomenal prime, flat-batted Haris Rauf down the ground and Pakistan out of a World Cup singlehandedly. Or when Pakistan’s then-President Pervez Musharraf complimented Mahendra Singh Dhoni on his hair.

We may continue to not receive the trophy from the presiding official of the tournament we’re choosing to play, but I don’t want to or have an opinion on it. I want the petty old days back, when Shoaib Akhtar went looking for Harbhajan Singh’s hotel room after their 2010 Dambulla Cup fight. When Gautam Gambhir stared Shahid Afridi down with inches to spare between the two firebrands. Maybe I just want to watch Virender Sehwag demolish Pakistan in their own backyard with the first-ever triple century by an Indian. Maybe I just want to be angry, bitter and hateful on my own.