Unregulated and Unsustainable City called Gurgaon

It’s almost a year now since I became resident of Gurgaon. I never really ever thought of shifting from Bangalore that too to Delhi NCR but as luck has it, sometimes you get things which you never plan and dream about and given a choice, would easily skirt those as options. Here are few reasons which continue to remind me of sweet memories of Bangalore and never let me adopt the new place.

People: Bangalore has some of the best people you find in a metropolitan city in India. You don’t see poverty on roads like you see in many towns and cities in India. You don’t spot acute class and status culture. People talk about innovation and technology and not about property as they do in Gurgaon. There’s perceptible equality and homogeneity from economic angles in Bangalore while Gurgaon has three classes - Mercedes/Audi Class, Verna/City class, Swift/i20 class, and people without vehicles, who don’t have vehicles by choice or can’t afford to have one don’t qualify for a class. The so called millennium city has people of two kinds - who either come to work from other part of NCR or live to work in the city. The rich, unashamed, rash set of people can be found arguing on roads, driving crazily on city roads, jumping traffic signals (If those operate) and shopping/eating out in malls. While you can’t travel in public transport like a bus in Gurgaon because none exists, Bangalore is full of buses plying on roads and transporting people who are not flamboyant, who come from different social, economic backgrounds but carrying a progressive demeanor of culture and non-brazenness.  Once I met an XLRI graduate who worked as Regional manager in one of the Tata companies in Bangalore, considering his seniority in organization, I was surprised that he was commuting from office to home in a bus.  One can never spot such instances in Gurgaon where public transport barring Delhi Metro doesn’t even exist. It is a city where one has to have a car to go from one point to the other creating chaos and pollution on the roads and a city where your status consciousness and societal non acceptability will force you to commute by a car.

Talking about mannerisms, even bus conductors in Bangalore can speak to you in English or even in Hindi, but here, conductors in Delhi NCR buses will not even come to you to give tickets. You have to manage to get to them in a crowded bus to buy your ticket. If you don’t buy a ticket, he is not even going bother about it. It is your call to buy a ticket and his duty to issue tickets. Once on raising this issue, I was even objected by fellow passengers that as a passenger you have to go to conductor and it is foolish on my part to expect him to come to me. I have never seen ticket conductors in Bangalore occupying a seat in a bus when passengers are standing but here in Delhi NCR, conductors are king, they will not stand up from their seat even when a pregnant woman is standing just beside them.

Once I spotted a traffic police smoking profusely in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in Gurgaon while (mis)managing traffic because traffic lights had stopped working. You can spot people jumping red lights every day, traffic police being non active at their best, most educated and sophisticated gentry of Gurgaon breaking traffic laws, and showing complete contempt to people walking or driving vehicles less expensive than theirs.

Food: Bangalore is full of restaurants and eateries and so is Gurgaon. If you want to eat something cheap, you can only get chole bhature and aloo puri. While you want to eat cheap, you have no option but to eat greasy food in Gurgaon while Bangalore offers you Dosa, Idli and vada which at least in my belief have lesser fatty content than options in Gurgaon

Weather: Gurgaon experiences extreme weather - 6-7 months of heat followed by extreme winters by Indian standards. Can’t even compare it with Bangalore’s salubrious, cool weather, where you don’t need to install ACs, geysers and room heaters. You can’t survive summers of Gurgaon if you don’t have an AC and winters of Gurgaon will kill you if you don’t have room heaters and geysers but you can be rest assured of not getting drenched even if you are in the peak monsoon season just because it hardly rains in Gurgaon.

Wait for mid summers, you will witness dust storms, Dusty winds flowing from Rajasthan will envelope the entire city of 2 million and come winters this will change to envelope of fog and smog. Every year, everybody blames pollution and agriculture fires for fog and smog but no one seems to be doing anything for a permanent solution.

Malls: People brag about malls if those are the best masterpieces of Gurgaon. Apart from the Ambience mall and may be one or two others, Malls on MG Road are just in awful state. Just get down at MG Road Metro station in Gurgaon and you will find malls on both sides of the road. What you despise is the poor state of service roads, People parking randomly on service roads instead of parking in the malls, and sheer filth on roads on the way to these malls. Would these malls not be more appealing to customers had mall owners taken care of aesthetics in front of the malls? Shoppers have to go from one mall to the other crossing service roads, would it not be better had there been easy passage of shoppers from one mall to the other. I think neither mall owners nor city administration take care of such things because customers has no option but to turn up in the malls despite all the ills.

Security: There is big fear about robbery and crimes against women in Gurgaon. Go to Google news and search for Gurgaon, 5 out 10 news articles will about crimes in Gurgaon. Criminals and Nuevo riche shot at Toll booth employee, kill people in the ICU in hospital, rape women in the mall parking and what not. There is not even a single apartment where people don’t fear for robbery. It is so acceptable that people have come to terms with it and that we have to bear it if we have to live in Gurgaon. It is scary to come from Gurgaon railway station at night. Fear is deeply entrenched in the minds of people.

Railway Station – I bet if even 0.5% of Gurgaon’s population ever visited Railway station. Even cities such as Ratlam of 2-3 lakh population boast of better Railway station than that of Gurgaon. It is a shame that old Gurgaon where this Railway station exists is completely ignored of any development. It is appalling to see a city of two metros-Delhi Metro and upcoming Rapid Metro with such a poor and decrepit Railway Station.

Power cut: This city (don’t even feel like calling it a city) experiences load shedding every day. All the glitz and shine is a waste if Gurgaon administrators can’t provide uninterrupted power to companies and residents.  In summers this problem becomes acute with frequent load shedding. Just across the border, Delhi has uninterrupted power and Gurgaon on the other side experience load shedding of shameful magnitude. This is the treatment to city which alone contributes 42% of the Haryana state revenue.

Street lights: Surprisingly streets of Gurgaon are like highways, I am not taking about quality of roads, I talking of streets sans street lights. I can understand when you drive SUVs, you don’t need street lights? Just imagine how hard it is for pedestrians to walk roads at nights in the fear of being crushed by drunk drivers or robbed by uncouth or imagine the plight if people riding bicycles and cycle rickshaws. This city is far from any urban planning and is just a symbol of unregulated Capitalism of worst kind.

Water: There is acute water shortage in the city.  With lack of rain water harvesting in apartments, ground water table has gone to acutely low level. Not all areas of Gurgaon are covered by water pipelines of Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) and hence residents are dependent on Ground water or water tankers. With ground water almost running out and quality of tanker water not being credible, Does without this basic necessity, can Gurgaon even call itself a habitation of future?

Amenities: While you spot ornate Liquor showrooms and shops in the entire Gurgaon, you have to really try hard to find a public library. A city has to have basic amenities along with extra add-ons such art galleries, theaters, playgrounds, parks that cities of Delhi and Mumbai boast of. A city devoid of such basic essentials is like a body without soul.

Rents and Cost of Living: Cost of living is extremely high and if you want to live in a decent place, you have to pay through your nose. With such steep cost of living, can it really attract people of all strata to co-exist?.

I am still searching for answers to some of the obvious and prominent questions

·         Does Gurgaon without Bijli, Paani, Sadak(BSP) has a sustainable future?

·         With its residents devoid of any mannerisms and civility, give any edge to Gurgaon as compared to other metropolis?

·         How long can Gurgaon without any futuristic urban planning hold the tag of millennium city?

·         Can Gurgaon be ever safe and secure for women and children?

·         Will residents start taking ownership of the city actually do something about it?

·         Can we ever see it as a warm and welcoming city for all strata and classes of society?