The recollection of waking up on a Sunday morning in the ’50s at my home in Behala and finding a yet-unopened bar of KitKat next to my pillow or under it is to this day a heavenly feeling.
My parents went to the movies every Saturday night. The city was splayed out with cinema halls, movie theaters. Ajanta, Bijoli, Globe, Metro, Lighthouse, Elite, Suchitra, Ajanta, Society, Crown, Majestic, Jyoti, Bhabani, Minerva, New Empire showing first-run Hollywood films and Bengali movies. Bollywood in Kolkata of the 1950s wasn’t a thing. My parents’ generation of Bengalis were snooty about the “pure entertainment” of Bollywood. They considered film directors such as Bimal Roy, Asit Sen, Tapan Sinha to be turncoats to the regional cinema of Bengal.
Each week they’d bring me that KitKat bar. It’s not the taste of chocolate or the crunchiness of the chocolate-covered wafers that enthrals me so many decades later. It was the ordinary togetherness, the undramatic couplehood, or my perception of it that comforted me and brought me momentary joy and relief.
Ours was an unpredictable household. My father’s mercurial responses to the world around him often determined my level of comfort (later, I realized it affected my ability to trust those around me).
A few years before my father died, this June it would be forty-three years ago, I asked him, in one of our rare no-agenda chats, what those Saturday evenings meant to him. He said that was the way he relaxed and the workaholic in him quietened.
The recall of the feeling of finding the bar of chocolate and the remembrance of my untutored chat with my father is one of my happiest, unencumbered memories.
“Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life. Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without effort or distress of mind. And suddenly the memory returns.”
(~Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way)
From Kolkata Telegraph, May 17, 2026. Press Trust of India
India has emerged as the largest market globally for KitKat, the iconic chocolate-coated wafer bar of Swiss food and confectionery major Nestlé, driven by strong consumer penetration, product innovation and aggressive marketing investments, according to the company.
India, which had been the second-largest market for the brand over the last 2-3 years, has now become its biggest market globally, underscoring India’s growing importance for the iconic chocolate wafer brand sold in over 85 countries.
“India is now the largest market for KitKat globally, and the brand has accelerated its market share growth over the last few years,” Nestlé India Chairman and Managing Director Manish Tiwary said during a recent media interaction.
KitKat has now become the second brand in Nestlé’s portfolio, after Maggi, to emerge as the largest market globally.
A decade ago, India was at number 10 globally for KitKat.
As part of Nestlé India’s confectionery portfolio, KitKat contributed to strong momentum in FY26, with the confectionery product group delivering high double-digit growth in both value and volume, backed by robust underlying transaction growth across its key brands, he added.
According to reports, Japan, Brazil, and Europe are among the other leading markets for KitKat.
Nestlé India Director Confectionery and Cereals Jagatheesan Gopichandar said KitKat’s performance was driven by “strong increase in core penetration and also entry into new consumer demand spaces” with innovations across mainstream and premium segments.
“We entered into gifting with KitKat Celebreak and nibbling with KitKat pops. We accelerated the premium portfolio with the launch of KITKAT Delights range with variants including Salted Caramel and Hazelnut, alongside mainstream innovations such as KITKAT DUO and KitKat Lemon and Lime,” he said.
To further deepen consumer engagement, Nestlé India has significantly increased advertising spends and rolled out partnerships and campaigns aimed at strengthening brand relevance.
The company also said investments in its visicooler programme (commercial glass-door refrigerator designed to store and display) have helped accelerate growth across urban and rural markets while supporting the rollout of new product innovations.
Nestlé India, in its annual report for FY25, had said it had 3,950 million fingers of KitKat after doubling its market share and becoming the fastest-growing brand within the chocolate category in the country.
While Maggi’s business in India is also the largest market worldwide, where it sold 5+ billion serves.
KitKat was created in the 1930s by the British confectionery company Rowntree’s. It came under Nestlé’s fold after the Swiss multinational acquired Rowntree’s in 1988. However, in the US, KitKat is manufactured under licence by the Hershey Company.