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?
