As you drive into Gurgaon, concrete fists start appearing in a straight line. Its as if you are seeing a 3d X-ray of a patients spine. Or a communist rally against the mass industrialization of the city.
Dust clouds are everywhere, the familiar whirring of jackhammers and pneumatic drills have replaced the chirping of birds or the barking of dogs.
I am in Gurgaon to attend a convention for our company. I see BPO bound Qualis' driving data crunching dilettante's to their destiny. Packed like peas they share sandwiches, smokes and yes even shawls. It is a strange camaraderie borne out of despair.
Gurgaon is the mecca of materialistic bliss, the page 3 celeb of India's achievement story. Here apartment complexes rub shoulders with malls and multiplexes, brushing away the small hutments that appear like a rash in between.
I see a few rickshaws( adult tricycle's used for transport if I can call them) in the midst of a sea of cars, buses, autos, cabs. They take my mind to a story I read a while back. Some months ago a gang of Gurgaon killers, whose parents had sold their tracts of farmland and drunk away the money. These young men were uneducated, unemployed and the stillness of their life in the midst of the bustling pace of Gurgaon had jolted them to action. They found a pastime that gave them potency and power. They drove cabs and murdered unsuspecting passengers. The first for 40 rupees!! 17 murders later they languish in jail. Perhaps content in the certainty of an end to their story. They will either hang or get life imprisonment. Their families since the discovery of their deeds have disowned them, but destiny had disowned them long before.
My friends in Bombay often nervously joke of how beggars have graduated from requests to threats, from gestures to noisy assaults on your window, from cupped hands to ring clad fingers clenched into fists rapping an incessant beat till you relent. The conversation ends with similar thoughts: will they soon just block your way to demand their keep. How long before the marginalized stand at the gates of mecca?
Soon the metro will run smoothly over the elevated MRT tracks, erasing the erratic bumps on the road. The dust clouds will settle and many more will flock to the land of opportunity.
As I gaze out of my car I see a rickshaw that leisurely makes its way to a nearby market. I am sure they too will disappear of the roads soon, bowing to the demands of a nation racing against time to save the rest of the world some time. Below the rickshaw is an advertisement dulled and scratched: Moving houses contact "gogurgaon.com "
Dust clouds are everywhere, the familiar whirring of jackhammers and pneumatic drills have replaced the chirping of birds or the barking of dogs.
I am in Gurgaon to attend a convention for our company. I see BPO bound Qualis' driving data crunching dilettante's to their destiny. Packed like peas they share sandwiches, smokes and yes even shawls. It is a strange camaraderie borne out of despair.
Gurgaon is the mecca of materialistic bliss, the page 3 celeb of India's achievement story. Here apartment complexes rub shoulders with malls and multiplexes, brushing away the small hutments that appear like a rash in between.
I see a few rickshaws( adult tricycle's used for transport if I can call them) in the midst of a sea of cars, buses, autos, cabs. They take my mind to a story I read a while back. Some months ago a gang of Gurgaon killers, whose parents had sold their tracts of farmland and drunk away the money. These young men were uneducated, unemployed and the stillness of their life in the midst of the bustling pace of Gurgaon had jolted them to action. They found a pastime that gave them potency and power. They drove cabs and murdered unsuspecting passengers. The first for 40 rupees!! 17 murders later they languish in jail. Perhaps content in the certainty of an end to their story. They will either hang or get life imprisonment. Their families since the discovery of their deeds have disowned them, but destiny had disowned them long before.
My friends in Bombay often nervously joke of how beggars have graduated from requests to threats, from gestures to noisy assaults on your window, from cupped hands to ring clad fingers clenched into fists rapping an incessant beat till you relent. The conversation ends with similar thoughts: will they soon just block your way to demand their keep. How long before the marginalized stand at the gates of mecca?
Soon the metro will run smoothly over the elevated MRT tracks, erasing the erratic bumps on the road. The dust clouds will settle and many more will flock to the land of opportunity.
As I gaze out of my car I see a rickshaw that leisurely makes its way to a nearby market. I am sure they too will disappear of the roads soon, bowing to the demands of a nation racing against time to save the rest of the world some time. Below the rickshaw is an advertisement dulled and scratched: Moving houses contact "gogurgaon.com "
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