Daily Human – Finally – 30/9/21

Today, Shaya’s ( CaratLane’s sister silver brand ) shop in shop went live in Shoppers Stop Malad. It’s an important step in Shaya’s foray into retail.

But it has a much bigger, far more symbolic meaning for me.

12 years ago, 1 year after we started CaratLane, we were trying to get a shop in shop in Shoppers Stop for CaratLane. We were hoping to get some legitimacy and build trust with customers.

I travelled from Chennai to Mumbai to meet a middle management person in Mumbai. After talking an appointment.

After waiting for a long time in the reception, we finally met. He asked me some questions and unconvinced by my answers most likely, dismissed me. It took no more than ten mins.

I was extremely disappointed. I had lots of time to kill before my return flight. Usually I would have met a friend. But I was too dejected for that.

I just went to the airport and ruminated.

Remember, these were early days for CaratLane. It used to be extremely tough. We used to get rejected regularly by all kinds of people for all kinds of things.

But this one hurt a lot. I wondered where we were headed. I thought of all the brands which retailed at SS. Were we worse than them ?

I realised I didn’t want to meet a friend because I didn’t want to share my failure with anyone.

I am usually very thick skinned. I had also experienced a lot of rejection in earlier jobs. TV dealers in small towns in Saurashtra would not even offer me a seat.

But for some reason, this snub hit hard. Possibly, it got compounded by the fact that I had travelled all the way from Chennai for this meeting.

Anyways.

I think after a few days, my optimism returned and I got back to facing rejections with renewed vigour.

I have not carried this slight with me or anything. Never used it to motivate myself.

But it just felt good that we finally got a counter.

After all these years.

We did make something of this business