Bharati Motwani profiles Gurgaon, one of New Delhi's fastest growing satellite cities.
Twenty years ago Gurgaon was a gaon – a village, with happy buffaloes lazing in muddy pools, old men resting on string cots puffing hookahs, surveying their green paddy fields. And then the global economy arrived, and like the comets that wiped out the dinosaurs, the gaon was history. The old men are still there. But now there’s a BMW in their Italian marbled backyards and no buffalo.
Cities evolve organically, slowly by an accretion of culture. But Gurgaon is in a hurry, leapfrogging from the 19th century to the 21st, and taking its chances that it won’t tumble into the crater left by the century in between. This ambitious off-shoot of laid-back Delhi is all glitz and glass, high rises and hotels, shopping malls and nightclubs.
India’s outsourcing industry was born in Gurgaon when GE Capital first opened shop here in 1997. Today, 10 years later, Gurgaon is South Asia’s biggest outsourcing and off-shoring hub with multinational biggies of every hue operating out of plush steel and plate-glass offices. Offices that bear the same monocultural architecture imprint as ones in London, Dubai or Hongkong.
Built at three to eight times the cost of conventional structures, they hum with expensive electronic technologies, out of place in a city of cheap labour: computer-controlled louvres that shield the facade from the sun, and floor-mounted sensors that move whole elevator banks to pick up a lone passenger.
Gurgaon, like the Universe, is part Chaos Theory, part Quantum Mechanics and part Relativity. There are Korean cars, Japanese highways, New Jersey suburbs, Dubai builders, French architects and condominiums with American names like Palm Springs, Malibu Towne, Central Park and Beverly Hills – all manner of international answers to a uniquely Indian question.
At night, if you squint a little and stretch the imagination a bit, it’s a Singapore skyline. Demographically, it’s a city of young people, young professionals and entrepreneurs, earning in a year what their parents did in a lifetime. A population with far-reaching aspirations and deep pockets. The boom-time is dizzying. Twenty-five-year-olds buy luxury cars and duplex apartments and vacation in Europe, as they skip from one high-paying job to another even higher-paying one. These are seductive times to live in, and the job glut-fest is bringing in an expatriate population, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Empire when all Europe was here for the easy pickings.
The word “mushrooming” is generally spoken in the same breath as “Gurgaon’s shopping malls”, with 12 doing roaring business and nine more underway. To many, nothing symbolises India’s transformation from a developing country into an emerging economic superpower more than these sparkling arcades. With American and European designer tags, international food chains and images of sylph-like models papering shopfronts, you could well be in New York or Sydney.
And malls are not perceived as places to merely shop but rather as recreational places to hang out for the entire day with friends and family. There are cinema-multiplexes, bowling alleys, dance clubs, spas and grooming salons, specialty restaurants, cafés and even bungee jumps – a self-contained world of unabashed indulgence for those who worship at the altar of good living.
Much of the multi-storey housing in Gurgaon now routinely comes with amenities that are a first for India – Jacuzzis, saunas, gyms, tennis courts, jogging tracks, swimming pools and landscaping. There is 24-hour power backup to cushion you against chronic power outages and private security to shield you from the crime on the streets. Premium villas and penthouses with “snob-quotient” and central air-conditioning come with price tags of between US$1.25 million and US$2 million. Real estate rents in Gurgaon are high. According to a recent Jones Lang LaSalle report, they’re about US$1,100 per sqm per year as compared with Singapore CBD rents that average US$950 per sqm and Shanghai at slightly above US$600.
All of Gurgaon’s facilities are privately owned and come with high price tags. There are three premium golf courses: the par-72, 18-hole DLF Golf & Country Club designed by Arnold Palmer, the only course in India that offers facilities for night golfing; the Classic Golf Resort, a Jack Nicklaus signature course spread over 1,212ha of the Aravalli hills; and Golden Greens, a smaller 18-hole facility.
Since jogging on Gurgaon roads is suicidal with murderous cab drivers and sleep-deprived truckers on the highway, gyms are where the city’s health-conscious corporates do their thing. Ozone at The Palms Town and Country Club is all about the latest health fads – pilates, yoga, versa and spinning, besides a stable of the very latest workout machines. And it’s a marker on the country’s developmental index, how fit and fashionably chic the Gurgaon wallahs look.
As for specialty restaurants, pubs and discotheques, there’s a new one opening every week. It’s as though one can see the city consciously create itself in the neon-bright image of a Dubai or a Beijing. But unlike China, the Indian leap is complicated by the fact that the roads do not keep pace with the restaurants, or the power situation with the pubs. There are a host of private state-of-the-art hospitals in Gurgaon as the business of medicine slips into the gap left by lack of state health facilities. For the international business traveller, it’s easy to schedule a root-canal surgery (or even an illegal kidney transplant!) straight after a board meeting, and save himself the prohibitive healthcare costs back home.
Delhi has always been the country’s cultural capital with a vibrant dance, music and art scene and Gurgaon’s yuppie culture has long been the object of the old Dilliwallah’s scorn.
But no more. In February, Epicentre recreated the Habitat Centre environment in Gurgaon. Taken over by Old World Hospitality that runs India Habitat Centre in Delhi, the new facility boasts an auditorium, an art gallery, 4,140-square-metre exhibition hall and a restaurant. Epicentre has already curated some spectacular photographic shows, besides hosting theatre, classical music and poetry recitals.
From these beginnings will the intellectual and aesthetic life of the city take shape. And then Gurgaon can truly forget that it ever was a gaon. The old turbaned farmer and his buffalo will sit in the Gallery as a piece of installation art.
SIX-LANE CITY
With the opening up of the Indian economy two decades ago, Delhi City experienced a growth spurt that stretched the seams of the city’s existing space and infrastructure. As a result, the capital spilled out into the neighbouring states of Haryana in the south, and Uttar Pradesh towards the northeast.
Gurgaon and NOIDA (acronym for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority) are suburbs that have today grown into self-contained cities in their own right with facilities and a slick, modern sheen that overshadows the old city itself.
Noida now extends into Greater Noida, a city of wide six-lane highways, parks and open spaces, luxurious penthouses with private swimming pools, exhibition spaces, educational institutions and golf courses. Stadiums here will be hosting some of the events of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Noida has a state-of-the-art Film City that is the hub of all the major news channels and studios. The value of real estate has soared and now compares favourably with the highest rates of real estate across cities including New York, Tokyo, Singapore and Hongkong.
Unlike Gurgaon whose growth and development is largely a result of private investment, Noida is a planned city through concerted state efforts. While it has the malls and cineplexes to match Gurgaon’s, it also has excellent infrastructure although it continues to suffer from some pressing law-and-order issues.
WHERE TO STAY
With a constant flow of business travellers, hotels in boomtown Gurgaon are always packed, so make sure you have a prior booking.
LEMON TREE HOTEL
This is a pan-Indian hotel chain that offers full service in the moderate price category. It caters to business travellers and tourists looking for upscale accommodation and business and leisure-friendly facilities in the mid-price segment. Its tag phrase “refreshingly different” refers to the fresh, bright and fun décor and ambience. Lemon Tree operates two properties in Gurgaon at City Centre and at Udyog Vihar.
PRICE: Internet rate of US$172 for a June stay.
CONTACT: www.lemontreehotels.com
THE PARK PLAZA
Elegantly designed and fashionably styled on the lines of a European cosmopolitan business hotel. Sunlit by day and strategically illuminated by night, the hotel lobby is designed uniquely around the concept of light and space. Straight-line furniture and minimalist décor gives it an open, spacious feel, refreshing after the noise and crush of the city. The 45 stylish rooms and suites are designed and furnished with careful attention to detail. All have wooden flooring with a contemporary look, besides every mod convenience.
PRICE: Internet rate of US$247 for a June stay.
CONTACT: www.parkplaza.com
The TRIDENT HOTEL
This is considered India’s best hotel and is “a business hotel with a difference” in that it has a resort-like ambience. Set in 2.82ha of beautifully landscaped grounds, architecturally it has a Mediterranean villa-like feel with domes, long corridors and walkways, inner courtyards, reflection pools and fountains.The hotel has 136 rooms, elegantly furnished and with every convenience you can conceive of. It has two restaurants – one award-winning – and two bars.
PRICE: Internet rate of US$272 for a June stay.
CONTACT: tel 91 124 245 0505
