It was Gurgaon again, today, and today was very different from the other days. I've only seen the glassy-eyed Gurgaon this far, a ball of modern chaos. But the fibres that bind it came into a closer sight today, when I ran through a great half of it - the older side - from afternoon to dusk, and by the end of the day stood gazing at the setting sun along the highway, the glass facades creating poetic distortions from its reflections, and the neon glows in the foreground creating a surreal atmosphere at dusk, wishing that Guragaon could be frozen right there forever (or until I'd got a camera).
Gurgaon still comes off as an unpolished hub, and a reminder of lots of things gone wrong. The standards of living fall away with the falling sight of the great highway, and where the reflections from the great buildings cease to fall, the routine life feels like a crowded Lucknow market or a vast concrete park. But as long as the roads are good, and the women not being raped, and bloggers not being terminated, Gurgaon will do.
Firstly I'd like to kill the myth that Gurgaon's not connected. It is... at least the hours I was out there, trying to work my way through a dozen sectors. There are many shared Piaggio auto 'things' plying on its roads, charging a flat Rs 5 per seat. Shared transport Zindabad! The best part is that you will be 'adjusted' regardless of how many times its already exceeding its capacity. But though everything is connected, one often takes several fragmented routes to reach to their destination - I had to swap 4 'things' to make a 3 sector jump - maybe I look up more compatible routes. Also came across a nuthead behind the wheels of one such auto, who almost got me and the others killed on several occasions; one who'd curse and shout at anybody at his will; one who stopped and got out of his vehicle midway because he was profusely sweating in the pants; one who almost ran into a motorcycle because he wanted to convey to the biker that his stand hadn't been lifted; one who hounded a non-passenger on the road for dirtying his vehicle floor.
The most entertaining sight of the day was that of first a little hog sauntering past, followed by a large black hog , being chased by a little boy, across an open lot with the IBM and Accenture offices in the background; the sprinting motion of the hog across the barren land was detailed, unusually comic. The boy never managed to catch the hog as far as my sight went - the hog first tried crossing the road, but wisely didn't, then dodged the boy and 'sprinted' back the same way it came from. In the commotion, a feeble dog was also woken up, dead scared. The dog the left in the direction of Accenture building; idiot.
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