In Bengaluru’s traffic, the first thing you notice is the kids on scooters, weaving through the gridlock like frantic blue and orange mosquitoes. The delivery guys.
They are the bloodstream of the new India.
I’m looking at the numbers for 2025, the Year in Review reports corporates love to circulate while congratulating themselves on “capturing the Tier 2 market”, and what I see is a country that has collectively decided it is done waiting. For anything.
We used to wait for things in this country. We waited for the gas connection, we waited for the license, we waited for the monsoon. Now? We can make it rain.
In 2025, India decided that 'want' and 'need' are the exact same thing, provided it can be delivered in under 10-minutes.
The Second Fridge
The data tells us that the Quick Commerce war is over, and the winner is our collective lack of impulse control. The apps, Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, are the second fridge of India.
And what’s inside this fridge?
Technically, the number one item sold in 2025 was milk. But nobody tells stories about milk. The item that satisfied the late-night Indian soul was the masala potato chip. We ordered them in the millions. I am guilty; I dream about the crunch of a fried potato dusted in 'Magic Masala.'
But here’s another interesting fact: a single user in Chennai placed 228 separate orders for condoms in 2025 on Swiggy's Instamart. This person certainly had a better year than mine.
And then there are the maniacs. The Whales. God bless them. The guy in Bengaluru who spent ₹4.36 lakhs on instant noodles. Is that a diet? Or is it a monk-like dedication to sodium that I actually respect?
Flip to fashion page
The reports say 45% of the demand for premium international brands is coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
I’ve seen it. You go to a coffee shop in Guwahati or a mall in Surat, and the kids there are dressed better than the creative directors in South Delhi. They are wearing the Parachute Pants. They are wearing the Jorts.
And the skinny jean? Dead. Buried. If you are wearing skinny jeans in 2026, you might as well be wearing a monocle. The silhouette has shifted. It’s loose, it’s comfortable. It’s Gen Z Uniform,' and it is the only uniform that matters.
The thing that really strikes me about the 2025 shopping cart:
We stopped buying cheap shit.
The entry-level market is crashing. Nobody wants the budget phone. We want the iPhone 17. We want the Air Fryer because we have convinced ourselves that if we just fry our samosas with air instead of oil, we will live forever.
We are trading up. We are looking at our lives and saying, "I deserve the better version of this."
Is it financially responsible? Probably not. The year’s standout moment came from Hyderabad: a single Instamart order worth ₹4.3 lakh, containing three iPhone 17 Pros, delivered in minutes. Maybe he's running a grey market hustle, maybe it's corporate gifting, but who cares? He can afford it, and that's the word.
We are done with 'good enough.' We want the Labubu doll. A piece of plastic that does absolutely nothing but sit there and look expensive. Why? Because we can. Because having a useless, expensive object is the ultimate sign that you have finally made it out of survival mode.
So what did we learn?
We have become a nation of the high-low mix. Expensive tastes, cheap thrills, and zero patience. We know what we want, we need it now, and we look damn good doing it.