Fifteen years – not a ‘life time’ but much more than a ‘life term’, even without the exclusions of paroles and time out for good behavior. That is span out of my existence that I have spent in this Gaon, now My Gaon – Gurgaon. 1st January 1995 – I still remember driving down from Vasant Kunj, where I was staying, via the now NH8, then only a single lane road, stopping every few minutes, asking for directions to ‘Sohna Chowk’, now ‘Rajiv Chowk’, turning right to Pushpanjali Hospital. I also remember stopping at IFFCO chowk to buy a clay idol of Ganeshji from Ami Chand whose wife became my first patient, and later the whole community of potters and all the members from their village used to troop to my clinic.
I saw the ugly duckling of yesteryears transforming into the young emerging kid with braces, smiling and trying to hide her smile and then into the ravishing beauty sashaying down the ramp. I remember getting stuck at Ghitorni in a ‘chakka jam’ and only phone in the whole village. Ghitorni then turned into the latest in fashion with MG1 only to be reduced to rubble and then slowly scrambling back onto its feet. Time was when one had to book a trunk call to speak to someone in Delhi.
As the town grew, so it grew on me – and today, though maybe not the true blue dyed in the wool gurgaonite, I can speak the lingo with gusto and many people recognize me on the road.
I have seen the vast open lands convert into matchbox flats and also into luxurious flats, infact so luxurious and so costly that they are better and costlier than any bungalow. The single lane NH8 being subjected to a survey to assess the traffic flow, all the trees of both sides being chopped down to be transplanted – where is anybody’s guess, huge pillars coming up on the road, traffic diverted here, there, everywhere – all with a promise that soon commuters would be able to zoooom through Dhaula Kuan to Rajiv Chowk all in a mind boggling 12 minutes – infact I covered the issue in an article for Times of India – ‘Dhaula Kuan to Rajiv Chowk in Three years twelve minutes’ – three years for the project and twelve minutes for the zooming. But, alas! The project took much longer and the zooming and zipping is now reduced to a crawling – from Dhaula Kuan to Rajiv Chowk in more than an hour!!
The malls came and the nice quiet MG road was soon the ‘Mauled Road’ of Gurgaon. With a mind boggling 104 malls coming up, Gurgaon is slowly and steadily being mauled. The Metro reduced the speed on MG Road to a trickle and many a times it took me more than two hours to travel to Vasant Kunj. The Metro came, but it did not. Just like giving a lollipop to child in kindergarten to keep quiet, similarly a stretch from HUDA City Centre to Qutab Minar was commissioned just to placate the masses – ‘ab dilli door nahin’. And when Gurgaon was connected to Delhi via the metro, it came with all attended complications – delays galore, rush like in the Bombay (sorry – Mumbai) local and eve teasing like in the streets.
But still, with all its difficulties, the potholes and the cows, the rains and the jams, it is HOME.
Being a typical Gemini – two of everything, hobbies, cars, etc!! and etc!!! – I got into writing from a very early age – dabbling in small publications etc. and atlast ending up as a small cog in the wheel at Times of India.
And while my thoughts do reach the people, though late, but also maybe a bit garbled, just like the computers of yesteryears where the input was all binary and the output was garbage. So this blog!
And typical of everything which is Gurgaon – here are two photos of leisure valley – which looks like Hong Kong by night – but in the day is a swamp.
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