New Delhi, Feb. 15 -- The guy who runs the kirana store in my colony has a wounded look about him because I don't go there anymore. Things were not good between us even without that. He thinks I ask him for products that do not exist in the real world just to belittle him before marching off to a posh store with overpriced grains marked 'whole' and 'organic' and packed in brown paper.

A few months ago, for instance, I visited the kirana store after a long gap because Blinkit didn't have what I was looking for. I asked him for black rice. He had never heard of it, which surprised me because I thought anyone who owns a farm would know all kinds of grain. He told me that he had white rice, which he could paint black. It made some customers ...