A man wearing sandals with a Louis Vuitton logo stood in front of a roadside kiosk

Man wearing sandals with Louis Vuitton logo

When I visited Mumbai in 2024, convenience stores did not yet exist. Not even a 7-Eleven, let alone a store of a brand never seen before in Japan, could be found. To buy alcohol, you had to go to a liquor store; to get newspapers and magazines, you had to go to a newspaper stand; and to buy cigarettes, you had to visit a kiosk like the one in the photo. It seems a bit inconvenient to those of us accustomed to convenience, but then again, so did Japan in the past.

It is possible that there are some legal restrictions as to why convenience stores are not widespread in India, but perhaps the unique Indian culture of bulk sales has more to do with this. At a cigarette stand on a street corner in Mumbai, it seemed that few people buy a pack of 20 cigarettes as is, and that it is common to buy only one or two cigarettes. In such a culture, it would be difficult for a convenience store selling an all-inclusive product to take root.

As I was mulling this over, I noticed a man standing by the cigarette stand staring at me. I followed his gaze to his feet, where I saw a pair of sandals with the Louis Vuitton logo on them. The rustic street corner stand and the brand-name sandals were an odd combination.

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