top of page

By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local....

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local. This reversal owes much to policy. The recent rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which trimmed rates across categories from garments to home furnishings, has given consumption a timely push. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s September rate cuts, combined with income tax relief and easing interest rates, have strengthened household budgets just as inflation softened. The middle class, long squeezed between rising costs and stagnant wages, has found reason to spend again. Retailers report that shoppers filled their bags with everything from lab-grown diamonds and casual wear to consumer durables and décor, blurring the line between necessity and indulgence. The effect has been broad-based. According to Crisil Ratings, 40 organised apparel retailers, who together generate roughly a third of the sector’s revenue, could see growth of 13–14 percent this financial year, aided by a 200-basis-point bump from GST cuts alone. Small traders too have flourished. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimates that 85 percent of total festive trade came from non-corporate and traditional markets, a robust comeback for brick-and-mortar retail that had been under siege from online rivals. This surge signals a subtle but significant cultural shift. The “Vocal for Local” and “Swadeshi Diwali” campaigns struck a patriotic chord, with consumers reportedly preferring Indian-made products to imported ones. Demand for Chinese goods fell sharply, while sales of Indian-manufactured products rose by a quarter over last year. For the first time in years, “buying Indian” has become both an act of economic participation and of national pride. The sectoral spread of this boom underlines its breadth. Groceries and fast-moving consumer goods accounted for 12 percent of the total, gold and jewellery 10 percent, and electronics 8 percent. Even traditionally modest categories like home furnishings, décor and confectionery recorded double-digit growth. In the smaller towns that anchor India’s consumption story, traders say stable prices and improved affordability kept registers ringing late into the festive weekend. Yet, much of this buoyancy rests on a fragile equilibrium. Inflation remains contained, and interest rates have been eased, but both could tighten again. Sustaining this spurt will require continued fiscal prudence and regulatory clarity, especially as digital commerce continues to expand its reach. Yet for now, the signs are auspicious. After years of subdued demand and inflationary unease, India’s shoppers appear to have rediscovered their appetite for consumption and their faith in domestic enterprise. The result is not only a record-breaking Diwali, but a reaffirmation of the local marketplace as the heartbeat of India’s economy.

Quiet Quitting, Slow Living: The New Lifestyle Choices

In a world obsessed with speed, Gen Z is choosing to live life at half the pace—and twice the depth.

ree

The hashtag #slowliving has crossed the six million mark on Instagram. Tiktok stars are spouting terms like ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘lazy girl jobs’ and Gen Z is ready to take a pause, breathe and reflect. Albeit while posting these lifestyle changes and choices on social media.


In an age of everything instant and fast, a quiet revolution is taking place in the minds and the lives of a few—embracing slow living. Just as what our grandparents did. Cooking is slow and meaningful, selecting seasonal vegetables from local farmers, making gravies from scratch and bringing out the brass pots and pans instead of the microwaves and air-fryers. Fashion chooses sustainability, longevity and durability over synthetic, wear-and-throw fast fashion. Screen time and-coffee-on-the-go mornings are making way for slow starts with painstakingly brewed tea and yoga-in-the-sunshine. Hobbies are going off-line—analogue photography is testing creativity and skill in a way no digital image can, and book reading clubs meet on Sunday mornings at neighbourhood parks in a bid to replace the screen with a paper book and make new connections.


Don’t expect to see the middle-aged making the shift. It’s the Gen Z that’s teaching an older generation how to take it slow and live ‘mindfully’. Quiet quitting means that Gen Z is choosing to not ‘overwork’, rather, using the free time to pursue hobbies or long coffee breaks. Rushing up the professional ladder isn’t a priority. While these trends may seem flippant and a middle-class population in India may not have the luxury of shunning that extra one hour of work, the movement shows that younger people aren’t willing to burn out early like a generation before them.


At its core, slow living is all about mindfulness and well thought of choices rather than the proverbial going with the flow. It’s the way we lead our lives until the onslaught of gadgets and the highly hyped charm of multi-tasking. It’s about stopping to smell the flowers and diving into conversations with your children rather than scrolling on the phone. It’s about soaking in the simpler things in life.


Movies made fast living fashionable. Slick English movies showed people sprinting to work with coffee and a croissant in hand. Slow living was demonised as a waste of time. Why cook when you can order in? Why repeat the same clothes when you can don new styles every week? Clicking multiple photographs on the phone and then colour correcting them is faster than waiting for the light to fall at the right place and carefully planning the frame before using even one of the limited 36 shots in a reel. Books have developed a voice as people listen to audio books and podcasts instead of sitting down to read.


But as stress-triggered mental ailments grow, there’s an awareness that fast living isn’t healthy. The human mind, isn’t really supposed to ‘multi-task’, a Mumbai-based psychologist told me once. When we shift rapidly from one thought or task to another, multiple times in a day, the mind gets confused and loses its ability to focus. Completing one job at a time is a better way to be more productive. Over-scheduling our calendars leaves little room for rest, or reflection. Slow living clears up space for the mind to rest and recoup.


Many would argue that slow living isn’t a practical solution for busy, nuclear families. There’s no one to share the duties as work hours get longer, deadlines get tighter and a deluge of entertainment options make us want to pack everything into our day. It’s probably a lifestyle for the privileged few who don’t have to struggle with home, work and social life duties. But it isn’t true.


Living in the moment helps us live more meaningfully. And we don’t need life coaches for that. Mimicking the routines of our grandparents is a ready lesson in slow living. When you cook or eat, don’t discuss work or scroll on the screen. Focus on the colours and flavours in your plate. On a walk, don’t listen to music or a podcast. Instead, watch things around you—the pathways, the street dogs or even a random bloom hiding beneath a leaf. Nature heals and nurtures. Take off those smart sneakers and feel the mud under your feet. Gaze at the moon or the stars at night instead of logging into a streaming platform before bedtime.


Slow living heals and nourishes the mind. It’s a break from the furious pace of wanting to over-achieve. It’s about dropping out of a race with the world, not wanting to catch up all the time. In reel and video terms, it’s all about living at x 0.5 times speed.

Comments

bottom of page