📮 India's Shifting Posture
A quiet observation on the transforming India...
Over the years, I’ve walked through Agra and Ajmer - not just Andheri.
We’d stop at ATM lines, chat with shopkeepers, sit with distributors on plastic chairs. No slide deck can teach you what a Kirana owner in Rae Bareli will - if you just sit long enough and ask nothing for five minutes.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing consumption as data.
I started seeing it as posture.
– A young man in Gorakhpur, buying face cream - not because he needed it, but because he liked the brand
– A family asking if the mixer came in red
– A delivery boy comparing two biscuit packs, choosing the one with almond flakes
It wasn’t about the product.
It was about choice, not compulsion.
That’s the posture of a country that has crossed $2,500 in GDP per capita.
We’ve seen this arc before:
– China, ~2007 - air conditioners, smartphones, beauty products
– Thailand, ~2003 - modern retail, financial inclusion
– South Korea, ~1988 - department stores, appliances
– Singapore, mid-1980s - aspiration over frugality
– United States, decades earlier - brands as identity
Once per capita income hits that $2,000–$3,000 range, something shifts. People don’t just buy more. They choose differently.
They reach for:
– Better packaging
– Trusted brands
– Products that reflect who they are - or want to become
That same shift is unfolding here. Quietly.
In towns we don’t plot on investor maps.
In FY25, the biggest consumption jumps didn’t come from metros.
They came from Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh.
The products moving fastest?
– Premium Durables
– Multi-brand Selections
– Quick Commerce that says: I value my time too
This isn’t about affluence.
It’s about aspiration evolving into identity.
And the thing about this curve – once it bends, it rarely bends back.
So yes, economists will circle the GDP line. But those of us who’ve sat in the back of a general store for an hour, sipping chai – We’ll just smile.
We’ve seen this movie before.
India’s next consumption surge may rise not from metros, but from districts.
From Bharat, not Bandra.
From bazaars, not boardrooms.
And when that happens, the winners won’t be the ones who forecasted GDP.
They’ll be the ones who stood still long enough to listen at the ATM line.
Until next time,
Ravi Srivastava
Long-term investor | Author, Postcard from India
📬 Reflections on investing, India, and quiet compounding