I am also guilty of looking at infrastructure for the steel and glam.
But reality is every infra also touches the lives of so many Indians.
This video is from a new Mumbai Metro line.
Listen to this common Indian.
props to this Amex cardholder who grilled American Express AI customer support chatbot (that said it was human) until it cracked and went full AI chatbot
#WATCH | Raipur, Chhattisgarh: Former women Naxals, who once carried weapons in the dense forests of Bastar, walked the ramp to huge applause at a National Handloom Day event in Raipur after joining the mainstream. (07.08)
🚨🚨🚨🥹 LEO MESSI ON IG:
"Dad, I still can’t believe you’re gone. It hasn’t sunk in, or rather, I don’t want it to. It’s so hard for me to imagine that I’m never going to see you again, that we’re never going to talk again. I know you were suffering and that this is for the best, but you left us far too soon. We still had so much left to enjoy together.
"You kept asking me to play in one last World Cup, and just days before it began was when your condition got worse. It was the first time you weren’t going to be there with me at a tournament, but Mom kept telling me you were going to get better and that you’d be well enough to travel. I kept telling you we were going to reach the final so you could make the trip.
"After every match, I waited for and missed your message. That’s when I realized how serious the situation really was. Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking about going as far as possible, to give you more time and the chance to watch one of the games.
"We reached the final, but you couldn’t be there. I wanted to win it so I could bring the trophy to you and show you another one. I couldn’t. My legs just couldn’t give me any more. This time I tried to push beyond what my body could handle, but I couldn’t. I never managed to feel physically right.
"When I got back, you thought we had lost the final on penalties. We couldn’t talk about anything that had happened. You weren’t able to enjoy any of it. We didn’t become champions, but you have no idea how much we enjoyed every match. Once again, you were right: I had to be there and play in it.
"I’m telling you all this because it was the only thing we never got the chance to talk about. You already know everything else. We spoke every day and saw each other whenever my commitments allowed us to.
"I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I don’t know how to keep going. All I ever did was play football, and now I have serious doubts about whether I’ll keep doing it for much longer. You were by my side from the very beginning, and there was so little left until the end. Why couldn’t you hold on just a little longer so we could finish it together?
I know your happiness came from seeing your family doing well, your wife, your children and, above all, without anyone else knowing, from watching me play…
"It had always been that way since I was little. You took me to every training session as soon as you got home from work. Mom took me to many of them because you were working.
"And of course, you never missed a single match. How much you suffered watching me, and how much you enjoyed it, even though you never gave me too much praise.
"You were my dad, my friend, and my representative. You always knew exactly who you needed to be in every moment, and you were never wrong about anything. Despite some arguments or disagreements, you were always right. In the end, things always turned out the way you said they would.
"I’m going to miss you so much, but you’ll always be present, especially in the way I raise my children, because I teach them and raise them the way you and Mom raised me.
"Rest in peace and watch over us from above, just as you did here. Thank you for everything.
"I love you, Dad. ❤️"
A contrarian thesis to the India 1 / India 2 theory that I’m increasingly believing -
The same person is “India 1” when they buy a phone, “India 2” when they buy food, “India 3” when they buy furniture.
But the startup ecosystem keeps slapping one label on someone who changes with every category.
Take the guy with the Rs 1.2 lakh iPhone. India 1, no doubt. But also see where he doesn’t spend. He’ll happily eat the Rs 150 biryani off Zomato instead of the Rs 400 one - taste is taste, why pay 3x. He’ll spend on a nice watch but get his flat done by the local carpenter, not a branded one like Pepperfry, because furniture is furniture and the guy downstairs does it cheaper. Premium in some things, value-conscious in others.
The above case can be reverse too, someone cares a lot about furniture but not so kuch into watches.
Or the family that thinks twice before an Rs 80,000 fridge but drops Rs 1 lakh a year on the kid’s coaching without a second thought.
Point is - there is no such thing as “the premium Indian consumer.” There are people who go premium in 3 categories and check wallet hard in the other 30.
And that’s actually good news if you’re building. It means you don’t need to win a consumer’s whole life - you just need to be in the one category they’ve already decided is worth spending up on. Find that category, and the same value-conscious Indian will pay you happily.
Winning won’t come from chasing a fixed set of 100 million premium consumers. It comes from chasing the categories where the consumer stops counting.
@rohitptnk everyone’s clock runs differently! you showed up and in the end that is what truly matters. never blame yourself for taking time or getting to something late, the delay was the reason for making you who are. :)