Lifestyle

Maruti Suzuki Baleno and Swift lead top-selling models in India’s digital new car market, dominating the hatchback segment: CarLelo

Published

2 years ago

February 8, 2024

Neha Tyagi

(a Capri Loans Venture)

As online sales increase, CarLelo has recorded a five-fold jump in inquiries for new cars

● Millennials and Gen Z have been driving the purchase of new cars digitally

National, 07 February 2024: With the continuous growing demand for hatchbacks, CarLelo (a Capri Loans Venture), a leading online new-car retailing platform, has released its latest report highlighting Maruti Suzuki Swift and Baleno as the premier choices in India’s burgeoning digital new car market. The data reveals that during the last quarter of 2023, the company experienced a surge with 6,227 inquiries for the Maruti Suzuki Swift and 2,421 for Baleno.

CarLelo’s report has highlighted that both Maruti models have captivated the growing demand of online new-car buyers nationwide, generating an unprecedented increase in bookings and inquiries. The company has recently recorded a significant 300% increase in bookings of new cars in CY2023. This remarkable growth highlights the popularity of Maruti models among consumers seeking to purchase new cars online. Having an online user base of over 5 lakhs, month on month, the company has seen a persistent and strong interest in Maruti vehicles throughout the year.

In line with its commitment to innovation, Maruti Suzuki continues to push boundaries with technologies being offered in its product offerings. Both Swift and Baleno models stand as prime examples of this dedication, offering customers a blend of advanced features and unparalleled convenience.

Since its inception in 2005, the Maruti Suzuki Swift has seen an overall sales figure of one million units, showcasing its dominance in the market. In 2023 alone, the model sold a remarkable 73,090 units, further solidifying its position as a top choice among consumers. From its strong brand recall, exceptional cost-effectiveness, and the convenience of an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT), the Swift delivers on various fronts. Despite automatic variants typically garnering less attention in this category, the Swift stands out with its impressive mileage figure of 22 kmpl, a factor that attracts many consumers. Its well-rounded exterior design, featuring LED lights and an aggressive stance, has contributed significantly to its popularity among car enthusiasts. The 7-inch Smart Play Studio system offering Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity alongside sporty instrument dials, fabric upholstery, and a leather-wrapped flat-bottom steering wheel are key highlights of the cabin.

For those seeking a slightly more premium alternative in the hatchback segment, there is the Maruti Suzuki Baleno. Introduced back in 2015, the product has sold 2 million units to date. According to a recent report by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), premium hatchbacks experienced a notable surge of 18 to 20 percent in CY23. The Maruti Suzuki Baleno, positioned as a premium offering, epitomizes elegance for customers seeking a heightened driving experience. The Baleno’s exterior design seamlessly blends sophistication and allure, capturing attention with its sharp front-end profile and curvaceous tailgate, making it an instant eye-catcher on the road. Setting new benchmarks in its segment, the Baleno boasts several first-in-segment features, including a Heads-Up Display (HUD), a 360-degree camera, Smart Play Pro Plus, Next-Gen Suzuki Connect, and more, enhancing convenience for occupants. Being a Nexa product, the Baleno elevates the overall ownership experience to a higher echelon, particularly in terms of after-sales service and customer satisfaction. Combined with its strong brand value, reliability, and on-road performance facilitated by the 1.2-liter K Series Dual Jet petrol engine, the Baleno delivers a comprehensive and rewarding driving experience.

Gaurav Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of CarLelo (a Capri Loans Venture), stated, “We have noticed an increasing trend of people booking new Maruti Suzuki cars online. Tier-1 cities are at the forefront of this shift, highlighting the inclination of urban dwellers to use the Internet for a new car purchase. Therefore, we remain committed to redefining and improving the new car buying process, ensuring a straightforward, hassle-free experience for our customers. We aim to bridge the gap for car buyers via technology. We have also discovered that India’s younger generation has transitioned to online car buying, dedicating their time for online research and exploration before finalizing their car choice. This evolving pattern isn’t merely a shift in habits; instead, it’s a direct outcome of the continuous availability of high-quality, aspirational cars.”

To align with the growing interest in these premium hatchbacks, CarLelo continues to enhance its platform to meet evolving consumer needs. The platform has experienced a five-fold surge in new car inquiries, largely fueled by Millennials and Gen Z, who show a strong preference for digital car purchases.

The company also offers an array of new car options across different segments such as Subcompact SUVs, Compact SUVs, MPVs, Sedans, and more, along with a streamlined online purchasing system.

About CarLelo:

CarLelo (a Capri Loans Venture) is an online platform that is revolutionizing the new car buying experience through its seamless and hassle-free methods. It is India’s first multi-brand virtual car showroom, where buyers find the best new car deals. The brand strongly believes that buying a new car is a unique escapade that does not happen every day. Accordingly, its vision is to provide a complete bespoke experience to customers, all from the comfort of their homes. Buyers can visit the website, select the desired brand and choose a model based on variant, colour, features and mileage. While doing this from a large curated catalog of brands and models, the customer is directly connected to a relevant dealer based near his or her location without physically needing to visit a dealership. Moreover, customers can avail of the best offers and deals on their new cars by connecting with multiple dealers. For those seeking to finance their dream car, the company offers the best low-interest rate and minimum paperwork. Today, CarLelo has grown into a leading online marketplace for buying new cars.

https://www.carlelo.com/

Decor in Style

The Great Eastern Home Presents The Stallion

Published

23 hours ago

June 3, 2026

Neha Tyagi

The Stallion handcrafted ceramic horse sculpture with oceanic blue glaze by The Great Eastern Home.

A Distinctive Ceramic Sculpture from its New Collection

The Great Eastern Home continues to celebrate timeless artistry and exceptional craftsmanship with The Stallion, one of the most distinctive pieces from its newly launched ceramic collection. Handmade by skilled artisans at The Great Eastern Home’s workshop and glazed in-house, this sculptural creation reflects the brand’s commitment to preserving artisanal heritage while continuously redefining contemporary design possibilities.

Inspired by the grace and power of the horse, The Stallion captures the animal in its most regal and dignified stance. The sculpture beautifully highlights the fluid transition from the curve of the neck into the sculpted head, before sharpening into a strong, commanding jawline. Every contour is carefully shaped to convey movement, strength, and elegance, resulting in a piece that feels both artistic and deeply expressive.

Its rich, oceanic glaze further elevates the sculpture’s character. Flowing between tones of indigo, verdigris, and midnight black, the finish catches light differently from every angle, creating remarkable depth and visual intrigue. The constantly shifting tones lend the piece an almost living presence, making it a striking focal point within any interior setting.

Entirely handcrafted, no two pieces of The Stallion are ever identical, making each sculpture truly one of a kind. More than a decorative object, it stands as a collectible work of art that embodies craftsmanship, individuality, and timeless sophistication.

Price: On Request

Website: http://www.thegreateasternhome.com/

Instagram: The Great Eastern Home

Fashion

Sound to Silhouette: A History of Mutual Influence

Published

2 days ago

June 2, 2026

Jiya Jaitly

Fashion and music have never existed as isolated cultural forms; they are parallel languages of identity. One clothes the body while the other clothes the atmosphere, emotion, and ideology. A musical movement without a recognisable visual code rarely survives beyond sound. Their interrelation rests in a shared capacity to signal rebellion, status, class mobility, seduction, politics, spirituality, and generational dissent without explicit explanation. This confluence explains why every significant cultural movement inevitably develops a distinct silhouette, colour palette, grooming code, and behavioural aesthetic.

Fashion and music influencing culture and style

The earliest traceable entanglement between fashion and music reaches back to ancient civilisations.

· In Egypt, court musicians wore garments that signified sacred or elite status, while dancers and performers used adornment to amplify theatrical presence.

· In Greece, musical performances during religious festivals unfolded alongside carefully structured drapery and ornamentation that reflected philosophical ideals of harmony and proportion.

· In early India, classical musical traditions and courtly attire evolved in tandem: ragas, dance, jewellery, textiles, and performance aesthetics formed an integrated cultural expression rather than discrete disciplines.

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, music and fashion functioned as instruments of aristocratic distinction. Court musicians did not merely perform; they embodied prestige through embroidered fabrics, powdered wigs, structured tailoring, and elaborate ornament. Opera later refined this fusion, transforming costume into emotional architecture and using fabric, silhouette, and visual symbolism to externalize psychological and social tensions long before cinema emerged. The jazz age carried fluid tailoring and liberated femininity; punk arrived ripped, confrontational, and anti-establishment; hip-hop transformed streetwear into global luxury language; grunge made deliberate dishevelment an aesthetic weapon against polished consumerism.

The postwar decades accelerated this fusion into a cultural machine. Rock and roll in the 1950s weaponized youth style against the conservative social order: leather jackets, slicked hair, and slim silhouettes became emblems of defiance. The 1960s fractured into competing aesthetic ideologies: psychedelic maximalism, mod minimalism, and bohemian romanticism, each carrying its own musical identity. By the 1970s, glam rock turned gender presentation into a theatrical experiment, while punk repudiated luxury with torn fabrics, safety pins, and anti-fashion rhetoric; ironically, the industry eventually commodified even that rebellion.

Hip-hop’s emergence in the late twentieth century fundamentally altered the power dynamic between fashion and music. Where earlier eras often saw fashion houses shaping performers, hip-hop reversed the vector: street culture began dictating luxury. Sneakers, oversized tailoring, gold jewellery, and sportswear migrated from expressions of survival and neighbourhood identity to symbols of global aspiration.

This phenomenon was strikingly visible with the rise of The Beatles. Before them, mainstream male fashion remained restrained, conservative, and tethered to postwar uniformity. The Beatles introduced something deceptively simple yet revolutionary: youth styling as mass identity. Their slim-cut suits, Chelsea boots, and mop-top haircuts, then later, psychedelic experimentation reoriented a generation’s look. Early Beatles fashion projected polished accessibility; their later phase embraced flamboyant military jackets, Indian-inspired garments, tinted glasses, and bohemian layering.

Soon after, David Bowie dissolved the notion of a fixed identity through glam rock. His Ziggy Stardust persona fused theatrical makeup, metallic fabrics, platform boots, asymmetrical silhouettes, and androgynous styling into a cultural detonation. He unsettled rigid constructs of masculinity long before mainstream discourse possessed the vocabulary to discuss gender fluidity. Elvis Presley’s influence is equally central: in the 1950s, he translated rebellious sensuality into a visual lexicon: high collars, slicked hair, dramatic tailoring, jewellery, and overt physical charisma laid the blueprint for the modern pop star. Kiss Band converted face paint and exaggerated stage costumes into a commercial spectacle, anticipating branding strategies that would later be amplified by influencers. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath helped anchor darker visual codes that matured into gothic and metal aesthetics.

The 1980s produced perhaps the most complete fusion of fashion and musical mythology in Michael Jackson. He wielded visual symbolism with near-military precision: the single white glove, military-inspired jackets, loafers with cropped trousers, aviators, sequined stagewear, and sharply structured performance garments became instantly recognizable emblems.

Madonna treated fashion as a machinery of reinvention. Lace gloves, corsetry, crucifixes, lingerie-as-outerwear, platinum hair, and mutable personae repeatedly destabilized expectations around femininity and sexuality. Artists such as Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, and later Kanye West translated streetwear into a language of luxury oversized silhouettes, sneakers, sports jerseys, chains, varsity aesthetics, and designer collaborations rose from urban identity and economic aspiration. More recently, Harry Styles has mainstreamed softer, gender-fluid menswear for younger audiences, signalling another shift in how pop figures mediate sartorial norms.

These two have been connected to each other since the creation of both, as they work as Yin-Yang of art form, and they will keep evolving together and shaping our society, as Art is a place where humans find resonance.

Jewellery

The Stillness of Craft, The Movement of Code

Published

1 week ago

May 25, 2026

Jiya Jaitly

Jewellery has always been more than ornamentation. Long before circuitry and sensors found their place beneath polished surfaces, adornment carried meaning far beyond aesthetics — symbolising power, identity, protection, and self-expression. In India especially, jewellery has long existed as a living extension of culture and belief. Intricate Navratna pieces were thought to align cosmic energies, while shell and faience girdles discovered in Mohenjo-daro reflected some of the earliest expressions of decorative identity. The iconic “Dancing Girl” figurine, layered in stacked bangles, stands as an enduring reminder that adornment has always communicated individuality and status. Similarly, the delicate Maang Tikka was never merely decorative; positioned along the forehead, it was associated with the Ajna chakra, believed to represent intuition and inner awareness.

For centuries, luxury in jewellery was measured through the rarity of gemstones, the purity of gold, and the mastery of craftsmanship. Today, however, luxury is increasingly being redefined through intelligence and functionality.

Modern technology has introduced a new dimension to jewellery, though some would argue it has also distanced adornment from its deeply personal artistry. What once existed as quiet symbolism has gradually evolved into something interactive and responsive — designed to move in rhythm with contemporary life. Yet unlike the overt dominance of screens and devices, this transformation is often subtle. Technology in jewellery rarely announces itself loudly; instead, it integrates seamlessly into design.

Digital jewellery can best be described as wearable technology that merges communication, health tracking, and utility with adornment. The Oura Ring, for instance, appears deceptively simple in form, yet quietly monitors sleep cycles, recovery patterns, and physiological changes with remarkable precision. Smartwatches, meanwhile, have become symbols of both status and technological sophistication. Devices such as the Nimb Ring extend functionality even further by offering emergency assistance through a discreet trigger that alerts selected contacts and shares real-time location data. Smart pendants are also emerging as tools capable of monitoring stress levels, sleep patterns, and heart rhythms, subtly integrating wellness awareness into daily life without replacing professional medical care.

Luxury houses such as Swarovski have also experimented with embedded technology, suggesting a future in which craftsmanship and circuitry no longer exist as opposing ideas, but rather as collaborative forces within design.

The evolution of jewellery does not signal a complete shift in purpose; instead, it reflects an expansion of what adornment can represent. Jewellery once symbolised identity alone, but now it increasingly participates in experience — bridging heritage with innovation while adapting to the demands of a more responsive world.

Yet balance remains essential. Not every object must justify itself through utility or performance. Some creations exist purely for their beauty, emotion, and craftsmanship. Technology may enhance convenience and awareness, but it cannot replicate the instinct of the artisan, the patience behind hand-forged details, or the emotional depth embedded within human creation. The soul of jewellery still resides not in code, but in the hands and imagination that shape it.