Lifestyle – THE ECONOMIC INDIA

26 Jan

Why Tea Is Still a Booming Business in India and Why Most Entrepreneurs Get It Wrong

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New Delhi [India], January 26: Tea is still a booming business in India because it never needed permission to exist. That’s the part most entrepreneurs miss. Tea doesn’t care about branding decks, pitch days, or lifestyle adjectives. It’s there at 6 a.m. in chipped cups, at railway platforms smelling like burnt milk, in offices where nothing else works but deadlines and caffeine. It’s infrastructure. People confuse that with opportunity and then wonder why they get chewed up. India didn’t “discover” tea as a market. It inherited it, absorbed it, ritualised it. Tea isn’t consumed here; it’s leaned on. Emotionally. Economically.…

24 Jan

Why Emily Dickinson Still Feels Uncomfortably Modern

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London [United Kingdom], January 24: Emily Dickinson still feels modern because she never tried to be legible. That’s the part people keep circling without saying out loud. She didn’t smooth the edges. She didn’t explain herself. She didn’t care if you “got it,” and she definitely didn’t care if you liked her. “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—” wasn’t a clever line. It was an operating principle. That alone puts her closer to the present than most writers embalmed by syllabi. She wrote like someone who understood the mind is not a neat place. Thoughts interrupt each other.…

24 Jan

Jaun Elia and Indian Youth: How a Defiant Poet Became a Cultural Obsession

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New Delhi [India], January 24: Jaun Elia did not arrive in India quietly. He arrived amplified. Through a microphone that was not his. For most Indian readers under thirty-five, Jaun Elia did not come from libraries, serious Urdu study, or the long lineage of Progressive Writers. He came through Kumar Vishwas. That is not an insult. That is a logistical fact. Cultural transmission rarely cares about purity. Vishwas didn’t reinterpret Jaun. He recited him. He named him. He repeated him on stages that reached places where Urdu poetry had not travelled in decades. Small towns. College auditoriums. Televised mushairas. You…

24 Jan

Homes With Opinions: Why Personalised, Experience-Led Luxury Is Rewriting Interior Design In 2026

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For years, homes were treated like showroom checklists. Neutral sofa? Check. Minimal lighting? Check. A marble countertop nobody actually uses? Naturally. Somewhere along the way, living spaces became less about living and more about impressing people who don’t pay the EMIs. That era is quietly—and slightly smugly—ending. As 2026 settles in, interior design is undergoing a philosophical pivot. Homes are no longer designed to look expensive; they’re designed to feel intentional. Personalised layouts, tactile materials, local craftsmanship, and story-driven décor are replacing cookie-cutter “luxury.” The modern home is becoming an experience, not a catalogue spread—and yes, it has opinions. This…

24 Jan

Guns Are Bad, Bows and Swords Were Cool and Society Knows Why

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In ordinary, civilian life, society has made a fairly clear judgment without ever holding a formal meeting about it. Guns are treated as dangerous, uncomfortable, and in need of constant control. Bows, arrows, and swords, meanwhile, live comfortably in museums, sports, hobbies, stories, and backyard conversations about “cool historical stuff.” This isn’t because people are inconsistent. It’s because these tools interact very differently with normal life. Bows and swords existed alongside daily routines. People farmed, traded, raised families, and argued with their neighbors while these weapons were present. Most of the time, nothing happened. That mattered. Their presence didn’t turn…

24 Jan

Rules Were Optional Anyway: Why Gen Z Men Are Quietly Rewriting Fashion In 2026

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Menswear didn’t collapse in 2026. It simply stopped asking for permission. Somewhere between oversized knits, thrifted denim, pearl necklaces worn without irony, and shoes that look like they were chosen for comfort rather than approval, Gen Z men have decided something radical: fashion is not a rulebook, it’s a language. And languages evolve when people start speaking honestly. This shift didn’t announce itself with a manifesto or a runway rebellion. It arrived subtly — in metro stations, cafés, college campuses, startup offices, music gigs, and Instagram feeds that look less curated and more confessional. The result? A generation of men…

24 Jan

Mirza Ghalib: Why India’s Most Quoted Poet Is Still Its Most Misunderstood Mind

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New Delhi [India], January 24: Mirza Ghalib is treated like a relic. Framed. Sanitised. Quoted on calendars and WhatsApp forwards as if he were some polite uncle who happened to rhyme well. That version is convenient. It’s also false. The real Ghalib was argumentative, broke, vain, deeply insecure, intellectually arrogant, emotionally reckless, and almost permanently irritated with the world around him. Which is precisely why he still matters. Especially now. Especially here. India has a strange habit of embalming its thinkers. Once they’re dead long enough, we bleach out the mess and keep the aesthetics. With Ghalib, we kept the…

24 Jan

Short Trips, Sharp Intentions: Why India Is Breaking Up With The Annual Holiday

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 24: Once upon a time, the Indian holiday calendar revolved around one sacred event: the big annual trip. Planned months in advance, debated endlessly in family WhatsApp groups, negotiated around school schedules, office leaves, budget spreadsheets, and emotional blackmail. It was less a vacation and more a logistical operation. By 2026, that ritual is quietly losing relevance. Instead, Indians are scattering their escapes—long weekends here, midweek breaks there, sudden hill station detours booked on impulse and justified later. The era of the once-a-year grand vacation is being replaced by something more fragmented, more frequent, and far…

24 Jan

5 Best Credit Cards for International Travel in 2026: No Foreign Transaction Fees

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London [United Kingdom], January 24: People keep asking for comparisons because they want closure. A clean answer. Something they can screenshot and feel done with. International travel doesn’t work like that, and neither do credit cards once you leave your home currency and whatever consumer-protection fantasy you’re used to. So yes, this is listical. But don’t mistake that for comfort. 1. Chase Sapphire Preferred / Reserve These cards don’t try to impress you abroad. That’s their advantage. Visa network. No foreign transaction fees. Payments go through without commentary. When something breaks—flights, luggage, connections—the protections usually trigger without you having to…

24 Jan

Braj 40-Day Holi Celebrations Ignite a Fearless Cultural Revival

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New Delhi [India], January 24: The Braj 40-day Holi celebrations are back, louder and longer than anywhere else on the planet. This is not a festival sprint. It’s a cultural marathon, and Braj runs it with swagger. Holi, But Make It Forty Days Even in most parts of India, Holi comes, bursts into colour, and leaves within two days. In Braj, Holi settles in. For forty days. The 40-day-long Braj Holi, officially inaugurated with Rangotsav 2026 on Basant Panchami, unfolds across Mathura, Vrindavan, Barsana, and Nandgaon. This is not a modern reinvention or a tourism ploy. It is a living…