September Was a Reckoning

September 2026 arrived with the weight of completion and the lightness of beginning—a peculiar paradox I'm still learning to sit with.

A year at Harvard's Senior Leadership Program ended not with fanfare but with quiet clarity. The classrooms, the case studies, the relentless self-interrogation—they've rewired something fundamental in how I see problems and possibility. 

I returned to India different, though I'm still unpacking what exactly changed. Maybe it's the frameworks. Maybe it's the permission to acknowledge that transformation isn't always visible to the naked eye.

Between Boston and Dubai, through Mumbai and back to Chennai, I walked through retail temples that have been whispering their secrets for decades. 

High Streets. Shopping districts. Malls. And airport terminals where I've trodden countless times. 

But this time, I was listening differently. Less to the pulse of commerce, more to the heartbeat of human choice—why we buy, why we belong, why we return. The Purpose.

Twenty-nine years in this industry, and I'm still learning to see.

Then came the book. After years of saying it, of planning it, of living it—I finally started writing. 

The pages are raw. Unpolished. Some paragraphs make me wince. But they're honest, and that's all a first draft can ask for. 

I don't know when I'll finish. But I know now that finishing is no longer the question. Showing up is.

October sprawls ahead, mapped out with precision. 

Professional goals that excite me. Health targets that humble me. The machinery of ambition is running again, and I've learned to trust it without abandoning myself to it.

But September also left scars I can't yet talk about—disappointments so private they belong only to the quiet hours when no one's watching. Grief dressed as quiet. 

Loss dressed as acceptance. I won't perform recovery or false positivity about these. Some things remain buried because they deserve that dignity. 

What I know is this: the weight of these hidden things hasn't crushed me. It's only made me more deliberate about the rest.

Life does move on. 

Not because we forget or heal in neat timelines, but because the sheer momentum of being human—wanting, building, risking—carries us forward despite everything.

I have Miles to go... 

The road ahead is clearer now, even if the terrain remains uncertain. 

And I've learned something important in September: the destination matters less than the person you become while traveling toward it.

The COOP: Books, Vinyl and a Living Lab

In July 2026, The Harvard Cooperative Society, fondly called The COOP, opened its Concept Store inside The Atlas Hotel in Allston, Boston.

For the uninitiated, The COOP is no ordinary campus shop. Founded in 1882, it is America's oldest and largest university bookstore. It has served Harvard and MIT for 144 years.

Owned by its members. Open to all.

The new store sits on Harvard's Enterprise Research Campus, developed by Tishman Speyer. It is a short walk from Harvard Business School, a campus I recently called home.

What struck me is not what it sells. It is what it refuses to be.

CEO Jodi Goldstein calls it a "living lab". A bookshop by day. An event venue by night. Author talks, artist pop-ups, live music and community evenings, all within one intimate footprint.

The design team drew inspiration from Tokyo, Copenhagen, London, Seoul and Milan. Warm woods, patinated copper, soft textiles. Floor-to-ceiling windows fold the street and an outdoor patio into the store.

Fixtures move. The space evolves. Nothing is permanent except the intent.

Then comes the assortment: curated, not stocked. Harvard and MIT vintage apparel. Postalco and Hightide stationery. Massimo Vignelli's iconic Stendig Calendar. Travel titles curated by Monocle. Flamingo Estate candles, Japanese incense and Polaroid cameras.

And vinyl, curated with local record shop Vinyl Index.

That one touched a chord. The COOP once ran a 10,000 sq ft record store. Having spent my early years at Musicworld, I know what a well-programmed music rack does to dwell time. People linger. People return.

Here is the retail lesson. Transactions can be won online. Belonging cannot.

India has its own custodians of reading — Higginbothams, Crossword, and countless independents on our high streets. Many are searching for fresh reasons to bring shoppers back through their doors.

The COOP offers a quiet playbook. Curate harder. Programme every week. Let the store become the neighbourhood's living room, and let the community tell you what to stock next.

A 144-year-old cooperative is not protecting its past. It is prototyping its future.

That, I say, is retail with a pulse.

Apple iPhone Day One: Ritual, Rage and EMI

On 18 September.2026, the iPhone 18 was launched world over in multiple variants and colours. In select global markets, Apple’s first foldable iPhone model, termed the Duo was also launched, with only pre-orders available in the Indian market. 

Apple Watch Series 12 and the Ultra 4, along with Airpods 5 were also launched. 

Tim Cook, outgoing CEO of Apple shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) terming the event as “Happy Availability Day”. Part humour, part jubilation. 

Back in India, there is a video doing the rounds. A man stood outside a store for over ten hours.  When cameras caught up with him, he admitted — cheerfully — that he had no idea what the iPhone 18 Pro's key features were.

He just wanted to be first. That, right there, is the story of modern consumer desire in an unrehearsed exchange.

Buying an iPhone on Day One is no longer about the handset. 

It hasn't been for a while now. Social currency. Hysteria. A near-sacred annual ritual for a growing tribe. The purchase is almost incidental. The act of possession is everything. 

Let me profile who they are, because it gets genuinely interesting for anyone watching the sector.

At the top of the pyramid sits the elite tier — corporate boardroom executives, business owners, and children of wealthy families. 

They walk in during the opening three days. Quietly. No queues, no spotlight.  

The iPhone is an extension of who they are, not a celebration of it.

Then comes the aficionado — the dedicated Apple loyalist. They have been tracking the regular release schedule for months, studied every teardown, watched each hands-on review. 

They show up at launch because they actually want what is new. They are fewer in number than we think.

The largest and truly fascinating segment, however, is the EMI buyer. Young Millennials earning up to INR 12 lakhs a year.

Content creators — in front of and behind the camera. People whose entire digital life runs through a single screen because they own neither a laptop nor a tablet. 

For them, the iPhone is not a device. It is identity. 

Banks have grasped this beautifully — structured EMIs keep monthly outflows around INR 4,000, making perpetual renewals feel painless. 

Buy, pay, upgrade, repeat. The loop never breaks, and nobody is complaining.

And then there is colour — Apple's greatly underrated weapon. 

Under Steve Jobs, the palette was binary: black or white. 

Tim Cook steadily expanded it — Slate, Space Grey, Gold with the iPhone 5S in 2013, succeeded by the iconic Product Red. Today, 

Apple's range reads like a Holi poster — deliberate, festive, deeply aspirational. The iPhone 17 Pro's Orange turned into a peer contagion — one person posted, ten followed. 

The iPhone 18 Pro's Burgundy is more considered — a quiet declaration. When you carry any of these rare finishes, you announce your arrival before you say a word.

The celebrity layer adds its own dimension.  

Film stars sharing unboxing reels on Instagram are not being spontaneous — they are reinforcing the fantasy for millions of followers.  

The iPhone 18 Pro is already all over feeds before the majority have even laid hands on it.

Here is what retail teaches you: what is seen is what is perceived. 

Nobody knows which AirPods you are wearing. But everyone notices which iPhone you are holding — and increasingly, which shade. 

That is the difference between a product and a symbol. Apple has been selling the latter for a very long time now.

The Day Average Joe walked into Harvard

Thirty years ago, I left school barely able to hold a conversation in English. Writing was a distant dream — a country I had no visa for.

My parents, bless them, believed in me more than I ever did in myself. They pledged gold to send me to NIIT every morning from 7am to 9am. I would then take the bus to RKM Vivekananda College, Chennai for my B.Com every evening from 4pm to 8pm. In between, from 11am to 3pm, six days a week, I scooped ice cream at Baskin Robbins — their second outlet in India, right near my home.

Eighteen months of DOS, C, C++, Java, and MS Access. Long lab sessions staring at what I called a "smart-box." I scored in the top percentile. And then I prostrated before my parents and said — “I have no plans to save the world from Y2K”.

They pledged their newly bought house next. For my MBA. No parent should ever have to do that. No son should ever forget it, I say.

Campus placement at RPG Retail followed — a decent salary at the turn of the millennium, when jobs were genuinely hard to find. 

What came next felt like a long relay race across fourteen extraordinary years — Musicworld, Foodworld, Central Malls by the Future Group, United Colors of Benetton, Cafe Coffee Day, and Royal Enfield. 

Each baton pass shaped me more than I understood at the time.

Twenty years ago, I became the first Indian to pioneer Airport Retail — at the country's first PPP greenfield airport in Bangalore. That single chapter handed me a confidence I had never owned before, and a reputation that quietly preceded me across the Indian retail industry.

Fifteen years of Strategy Advisory and Consulting later, something stirred. In August 2024, I began exploring the Senior Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. I enrolled in December 2025. A fat tuition fee. Full-on debt.

My maiden trip to Boston was equal parts surreal and stunning. 

Standing in the rain outside the Mumbai Consulate in mid-July. A 90-second visa interview. Four tense minutes at Boston Logan — answering a curious officer's questions while he read my HBS invitation letter with what felt like deliberate slowness.

And then — the campus. The Baker Library. One hundred and fifty case studies across nine months, led by eighteen of the world's finest teachers, professors, and human beings.

My opinions mattered in that classroom. They rarely shifted. But my lens changed — permanently.

In the closing session, I told our Dean: "I came here in January 2026 hungry and impatient. I am leaving as a human being — taught humility, and to live with Purpose."

On 11 September 2026, forty-eight rockstars of the 22nd SELP-India batch stood outside Baker Hall together. I felt equal, grateful, and ready.

Average Joe. Done well, I say.

I still have Miles To Go.

Boston Days — Part 18

Two Airports, One Telling Silence

(I am writing "Boston Days" as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This concluding piece is about two airports — and what retail looks like inside each.)

August 22. Madras Day. The 387th anniversary of the founding of one of India's greatest cities. I was at Chennai International Airport, bags checked, about to board a flight to Boston.

There was not a single mention of it anywhere. Not a standee. Not a display. Not a book.

That absence travelled with me. It returned sharply weeks later at Boston Logan — on Labor Day weekend. A city that helped ignite American independence, now 250 years past. 

Not a word of acknowledgement. Not a commemorative shelf. No bookstore at either airport. For two cities carrying centuries of documented history and global significance, that is a remarkable omission.

Both airports are government-operated. Both have made credible choices in their retail concessionaires. 

At Chennai, the spread is genuinely varied — Chennai Duty Free by Flemingo anchors international departures with perfumes, chocolates, spirits and Gifts from India. 

Adyar Ananda Bhavan draws steady queues. Barista offers a comfortable sit-down space. 

The specialty corridor carries Fabindia, Forest Essentials, Nappa Dori, Hidesign, Co-optex and Krishna Pearls — a grounded, India-rooted selection. 

Guardian Pharmacy and Ray-Ban round off a reasonable concession mix. Newcomer Vidveda is still behind hoarding, clearly getting ready. 

Boston Logan reads differently — Boston Duty Free runs a strong liquor, wine and tobacco operation across terminals. 

Color Pop brings a curated beauty offer. Stephanie's delivers comfort food and cocktails to a reliably packed house. Gachi holds its own in sushi and noodles.

Each airport has its anchors. Neither is truly driving conspicuous consumption.

The problem is structural. At both locations, stores occupy the sides of the walking corridor — the passenger is not required to pass through retail to reach the gate. 

At Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai, retail is the pathway. Stores have no shutters. SKUs reach almost into the aisle. The distance between traveller and product collapses by design. Here, you must choose to walk in. Most passengers simply do not.

The lounge picture compounded things further. At Chennai, the Priority Pass lounge sits on the third floor — a deliberate detour that breaks the departure rhythm. 

At Boston Logan, no independent Priority Pass lounge exists at all. Only airline-specific clubs, behind closed doors.

Why do government-run airports worldwide maintain this quiet, hands-off relationship with consumerism — even when the infrastructure is entirely capable?

Passenger amenities, to their credit, are well managed at both. Clean, functional, adequately staffed.

But the business of retail — the invitation to browse, to discover, to spend — is still waiting for its boarding call.

Boston was teaching me on last time, as I bid adieu to the States. Until we meet again, IF we meet again, perhaps! 

(I am writing "Boston Days" as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This is the concluding piece in the series.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16 and Part 17 here.