Once, shopping for groceries was a tiresome necessity rather than something enjoyable—a chore so dull and monotonous to my sister and me as kids that we’d cry and scream at the mere mention of D-Mart, dreading those Sunday evenings at the supermarket. Before we turned 10, we made a pact with our parents: they would leave us at the neighboring Crossword, and in return, we’d read in absolute silence, avoiding all strangers until Mom and Dad came back with their groceries mysteriously restocked. If those parents could have foreseen what lay ahead for their little girls, they would have been utterly speechless. In 2026—already known as the Year of Analogue—nothing feels dreamier to me than wandering the aisles of a supermarket. The vibrant hues, the glaring lights, the cheese fridge… are these any less enchanting than the characters from the Enid Blyton tales I used to browse at Crossword? Wearing rose-tinted glasses, my memories of D-Mart feel gentler: my sister and I crammed into trolleys pushed by our parents, chattering endlessly while choosing snacks; on fortunate days, getting to buy precisely one toy. “I have to romanticize my life just to get through it, which is exactly what I did when I first moved to Mumbai,” recalls 25-year-old Gauri Mahajan. I felt so new to everything in the city and yearned for familiarity, to see the same faces and feel more connected to my immediate surroundings. That’s when I began taking pleasure in shopping for vegetables and groceries across the street.
