Here a theka, there a theka, everywhere a theka theka!

When the teen returned from university for her summer break merrily singing “Ganpat Chal Daaru La” (all the rage among Gen-Z apparently), it suddenly struck me that if Gurugram had an anthem, this one would certainly make the cut.  

I mean - take a look around you. There are more daaru shops here than schools, museums, libraries and bookstores. Doesn’t that tell you something? And if that wasn’t enough, the Millennium City is all set to get 300 more liquor shops from June onwards. *eye roll*

 

Oh and we also have shoot-outs. In fact, there was an incident at 32nd Milestone soon after I'd moved to the Village. A few gangsters had shot someone dead inside a restaurant. Left me quivering in my boots it did. Avoided that place for the next twenty years though I hear it's had a natty makeover recently.

 

Initially, I found Gurgaon’s ahatas, liquor vends and the culture of open-air drinking quite fascinating. Men (and sometimes women) would be drinking by the side of the road or highway in the evenings with their alcohol bottles lined up neatly on the roof of the car. For youngsters looking for a quick drink and snack after work, Gurgaon’s ahatas were a pocket-friendly alternative to pricey pubs and lounges. Over time, the makeshift shacks/ahatas transformed into buzzing open-air restaurants replete with ear-splitting music and, in some cases, a compact dance floor. There were reports of drunken brawls every now and then and illegal ahatas being shut down. But each time an ahata would close, another would open further down the road. It was like magic. Except it really wasn't.

 

Nowadays, I don’t see people drinking by the side of the road anymore like they used to in the past. And there’s a spike in the number of swanky liquor stores selling IMFL. There are at least six to seven liquor stores + innumerable ahatas in my vicinity. But only one school and one and half bookshops. Gurugram is not just Haryana’s biggest market but also accounts for a whopping share of Delhi-NCR’s alcohol business. It’s a lucrative business, no doubt. 

If only writing were as lucrative. I’m seriously considering bidding for a vend and turning into a Ganpat. Might make more business sense than writing books for a living!

 

 

Poltergeist? No, Power Cuts!

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

I don’t think Bon Jovi (or was it that Jean-Baptiste Karr fellow?) was talking about Gurugram but the chappal fits really well so I’m going to use it. Gurugram might have evolved into a swanky glass-and-steel Millennium City (just like Singapore) from a dusty hamlet but there is one thing that has stayed the same despite all the mindboggling changes. Come summer and the crippling power cuts arrive without fail – often much earlier than the langra aam I wait for patiently.

When I moved to Gurgaon from Calcutta in 1998, I was awed by my new surroundings. Vast empty spaces, stretches of unfettered green, quaint kothis and a handful of condominiums – ours being one of the few. It was almost as though someone had built me a house in the middle of the Maidan. On a clear day, I could see the planes taking off from the Delhi airport, from my 10^th floor balcony and there was a huge ravine (and illegal quarry – more about that later) in front of the apartment.
 
It was September, chill in the air, a glorious time to relocate from muggy Calcutta. I had left my job at British Council and decided to spend a few months unpacking boxes and doing up my flat before I began the job hunt in earnest. And right from the onset of that first winter, one woke up to a curious early morning power cut. Our neighbourhood friendly uncleji helpfully informed us that power would go to the fields as it was sowing season. A few months rolled into summer and the actual power cuts began. The condominium didn’t have power back up (there was a tussle going on between the builders and the residents that we had no clue about). The inverter ran out within two hours and the aircon didn’t work on it, in any case. So I sat at home and wept. My only company being the nesting pigeons and the heat rashes that had sprung up all over my arms and neck. It was an oozing mess.
 
In the evenings, when the husband returned from work, we would cruise round the block in our Maruti 800, air conditioner on full blast, buying orange ice lollies from the ice cream vendors and and chatting into the wee hours of the morning. You might think it was romantic but truth be told, I was nagging him to move back to Calcutta.
 
A couple of earthquakes later, we were shaken and stirred enough to move. Not to Kolkata but to a solid park-facing bungalow down the road. What a fall from the 10^th floor apartment it was. But like those pesky poltergeists from the American horror movies, the power cuts moved with us. There was just no getting rid of them. The house would heat up like a brick kiln during the day and husband and me would go around with buckets of water, hosing down the walls and floor to keep it cool. Thankfully, the bungalow had a nice little courtyard and we’d carry a cane sofa out and sleep under the stars at night. Romantic? Not at all. Uncomfortable as heck? Yes. You see, Gurugram mosquitos are warriors whose ancestors might have learnt a trick or two from the legendary warrior guru. And unbeknownst to us, Delhi was dealing with its monkey menace by deporting its denizens to the forests almost next door.
 
A year later, despite the crippling power cuts and the mosquito warfare, including waking up next to a monkey family, a baby came along and several months down the line, we decided to have a rice ceremony for her. Horror of horrors, on the day of the ceremony, the electrical wiring in the house went kaput. All that hosing down with water was probably the cause. So we were stuck without power for good and a house full of guests! That night, after everything was over, we booked a room at The Bristol (the only hotel in Gurgaon at that point of time) and had a good night’s sleep after months. 
 
Cut to the present. We live in a condo with functional gensets but every summer, it’s the same. The Return of Poltergeist in HD. The generators trip because they can’t carry the load of all the air conditioners running full blast in 900 odd flats. The electrical appliances go bust and I could be the heroine of my own horror movie. Often I let out a huge sigh of resignation and wonder whether things will ever improve here. Or perhaps it’s my destiny? After all I grew up in West Bengal in the eighties with rampant load shedding, candles and invertors for company with a Chief Minister who was called Jyoti (Light). It’s almost as though I landed from the frying pan into the fire. 
 
Dang - the lights gone again. See you later.