There’s a certain kind of swagger that pulses through the streets of North Chennai. It is magnetic, defiant, and impossible to ignore. It’s the kind of presence that doesn’t wait for a spotlight; it creates one. While the city celebrates quiet sophistication, this style mirrors its silhouettes — the fits and the flair. It is a way of claiming what’s in style as their own. In the margins, this scene doesn’t seek to reinvent fashion, but to inhabit it, and what may be interpreted as imitation is, in fact, assertion.
This is the world of our Pullingo (which translates to ‘boys’). It is not just a fashion movement, but a way of being and taking up space. Pullingo, a subculture, places itself within the trends the city upholds, not to reshape them, but to refuse invisibility within them. Their style — spiked hair, coloured streaks, ripped jeans, ankle-length pants, oversized fits — is defiance worn as an armour. Rooted in resistance, it attempts to reclaim power with attitude, agency, and an unapologetic sense of self.
However, standing in the way of this cultural movement is a society that is quick to judge and even quicker to dismiss. Pullingo, as a style, is often reduced to a punchline and is seen as synonymous with rowdyism, gangsterism, or thuggery. It’s branded as unruly and uncultured and is perceived as a threat to the norms of “respectable” appearance.
Troll content on platforms like YouTube and Instagram — often tagged as ‘Pullingo trolls’ or ‘Pullingo trolled’ — regularly targets young men for their singing, rapping, dancing, and short-form videos. These aren’t just critiques of content or harmless reactions but often delve into personal attacks on the Pullingos’ appearances, style, and economic background.
In one widely circulated YouTube video with nearly a lakh views, the boys are mockingly compared to “beggars on trains”. Their hair is ridiculed, and the use of a thread in place of a belt is mocked, rendering their DIY fashion a target of classist scorn. The same video brands them as ganja users, a stereotype that criminalises them without context. Kumaran*, a 19-year-old from North Chennai, says, “I make reels on Instagram. Lip-sync videos for love songs are what I am now posting. In many of my videos’ comment sections, people troll me,” he says.
On his 19th birthday this year, he wore new clothes for a reel — ankle fit, ripped pants, and an oversized shirt with bright flower prints — a luxury that he says his family can’t afford every year. One of the comments in the reel read, “Idhu enna dress-uh? Unaku indha style thevaiya?” (What is this dress? Do you even need this style?) “Such comments make me sad, but this is my style,” he asserts.
In countless memes and reels, Pullingos’ rap lyrics and performances are mocked for lacking metaphor or polish, without considering their limited access to formal education, a result of systemic caste and class exclusion. Two such songs, “En thangachiya naai kaduchuchu pa” and “Enga pullingo Elam bayanagram”, have gone viral, but not for the reasons their creators intended. They are often shared as objects of ridicule rather than recognition.
These stereotypes don’t just live on our screens but spill into real life, shaping how these youngsters are seen, judged, and treated in everyday spaces. M Sakthival, who volunteers with Vyasai Thozargal, a tuition centre in North Chennai, says, “If we colour our hair, even in the most subtle of colours or even if we just have minimal highlights and sit for an interview, we are profiled. They immediately judge, and then, of course, they can verify our address through our CV. Once they know that we are from North Chennai, we most certainly won’t land corporate jobs. This is despite holding the required educational qualifications.” He also emphasises, “The same is not the case for someone from other parts of Chennai. If they have highlights on their hair, they still might land that job.”
But what is more concerning is that it’s not just society’s gaze they must resist, but that of our law enforcement’s too, as it often profiles them, criminalising their presence, policing their bodies, and punishing their difference.
Policed and punished
Headlines in July read that cops tonsured three young men’s heads against their will for having coloured their hair. Their fluorescent green and pink hair was perceived as a bigger crime than what they had been picked up for, and the law enforcement humiliated, shamed, and stripped them of their dignity.
Abdul Rahim, a lawyer from Vyasarpadi, practicing in the Madras High Court (HC), who also represented the young men in this case, reveals that it is not a lone incident. “Only one case has come out, but there have been 40-50 such instances of the cops policing boys and men for their style and expression in our area,” he says, adding that if someone has been picked up for an offence, they should be booked for that offence alone and not be humiliated for their appearance. “Tonsuring their heads like this is a human rights violation,” adds Sakthival.
According to residents, even minors are policed for the style they adopt during summer vacations. Dishan*, a teenager, who had coloured his hair this summer, before school re-opened, recounts, “Many of us colour our hair or pierce our ears and put on earrings, especially when our schools are closed. The police will cross us on the road, and if they notice, they will give us two days and threaten to cut our hair or dye it black themselves if we don’t comply,” he says. According to Dishan and his group of friends, the cops have gone through with their threats on many occasions, where they have either chopped off boys’ hair or tonsured their heads, not just for colouring, but for adopting certain hairstyles, such as the taper and burst fades.
Taper fades, burst fades, along with eyebrow slits, are taking over the feeds of celebrity hairstylists — especially of teenagers and young men who can afford high-end salons. But when the same styles are adopted by North Chennai’s teenagers to perfection, they’re treated as a mark of suspicion. “The police call it ‘mullam panni’ (porcupine) hairstyle,” Dishan adds.
The police have even seized the earrings they wear. “If people who have money wear them, it is a sign of their status. But if we wear them, we are rowdies,” says John* an 18-year-old who hasn’t been able to pursue higher education due to financial issues. “Our earrings just cost between `20 and 50. If the police seize a pair, we will buy another pair and wear them anyway,” he notes.
Kani*, who works as a housekeeper in the area, laments that her teenager, who has never committed any crime, is often picked up by the cops for his style, and shows a picture of him with pink hair. “They would say that he would become a rowdy and even take away his phone. They would ask him to bring me to the station to collect it. I would drop everything and go. After much trouble, I decided to move to a neighbouring area altogether,” she rants. Such stories are in abundance in North Chennai.
Unlike Kani, Rateesh*, a delivery agent, says he couldn’t leave the neighbourhood and therefore resorted to suppressing his sense of style and expression. Until last year, he wore baggy pants, ripped jeans with oversized T-shirts, hoodies, bright-coloured and printed shirts. Now he wears regular pants and shirts. With vermilion slapped across his forehead, he says, “Because of my style, the police kept their eyes on me and tried to drag me to the station for no reason. I am the sole breadwinner of my family. So I changed myself, and now they don’t bother me.”
The problem of policing doesn’t just affect young boys and men — even well-known personalities who’ve contributed their talent to Tamil cinema haven’t been spared. Gana Muthu, who hails from Vyasarpadi and has sung several hits in Tamil cinema, including Puli Manga Pulip from Parris Jeyaraj and Vambula Thumbula from Sarpatta Parambarai, opens up. “I am also part of this Pullingo culture. When I come back home at night, say after watching a film or after finishing a concert, the police would stop me. They won’t believe that I have sung in movies and will be too quick to judge me. They would ask me several questions as though I have committed a crime, and even proceed to take my pictures. Even my friend Gana Balachandar, who has sung songs in the movies, faces this issue,” he says, adding that due to such repeated instances of policing, he decided to invest in a car.
“If someone colours their hair and travels in a car, the police won’t ask them questions. They won’t threaten to cut those people’s hair or comment on baggy pants as ‘maavu machine pants’,” he expands on the bias. Ironically, Muthu says, he has also sung songs for pro-police campaigns led by the Tamil Nadu Police.
Black and Pullingo fashion
Much like the Pullingos, black teens, youngsters, and men were often targeted until a few centuries ago — in schools, streets, at workplaces, and so on. While their identity and fashion were ridiculed to maintain White supremacy, Pullingos' identity and fashion have been turned into a caricature to disguise caste and class discomfort. However, both are rooted in resistance.
Themis Vanessa, a stylist, believes that fashion in both these cases can be seen as a form of cultural archiving, where every look holds a bit of lived experience, politics, and/or protest. She also sheds light on the hyper visibilities of these identities and how they are, at their core, the same. “Of the most basic and obvious visuals that define Black Fashion are oversized fits, stylised, and curated hairstyles, and bling that they bring to the table in the form of accessories. Though Black and Pullingo fashion may visually differ, they share their core aspect of definition, which is expression. It becomes a way of challenging what is expected out of them, and so naturally, hyper visibility follows,” she says. It is this hyper visibility that allows for the law and order and the society to criminalise, judge, and discriminate against them.
But will Pullingo fashion ever truly be accepted and eventually set the trend? We have seen Black fashion being co-opted into high fashion, and this year’s theme at The Met Gala — Black Dandyism — drove this point home. So will it take another hundred years for our Pullingos’ style to be accepted without judgment and for the community to be seen beyond the stereotypes? As if the years before haven’t been hard enough, they now continue to wage quiet rebellion; with every outfit, every reel, every walk down the street — a claim to visibility in a world that continues to laugh and look away.
*Names changed