Roundup- a third of a year in Gurgaon

A friend whom I met up for coffee the other day (a coffee shop in a mall, where else *rolls eyes*) asked me how I like Gurgaon, and have I become a Gurgaon-ite yet. Nope, I haven't, and I hope I never shall (in the context of the article and in terms of how the writer defines a Gurgaonite). I gave my friend a very honest answer. If you move around as much as we do, you tend not to be too fussy. Indeed, you simply cannot afford to be because then you'd just be miserable. Having said that, both S and I believe that when you move to a new place, you need to go in with a positive vibe and truly believing that it's a city/town/country that you will like, enjoy and explore. (Isn't that true of any new undertaking in life?). If you go in determined to be happy, chances are, you will be. Moving from the US to Noida wasn't easy for us and it wouldn't have been easy even if we had moved to UP from our last-but-one home, Bangalore. The gulf that separates a cosmopolitan city in South India from a city on the borderline of the Hindi heartland is very very large. On the surface, it all looks similar and familiar but people's attitudes and preferences are very different and one has to adjust accordingly. From that aspect, Gurgaon is a much more easier city to fit into. For example, English is much more widely spoken here than in Noida. The large number of MNCs have attracted a large pan-Indian crowd and in our complex, for instance, you hear snatches of every language -Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Haryanvi, Hindi, Punjabi, not to mention some Cantonese and Korean!

Where we live is very central to all the shops/malls, office complexes and we have 2 metro stations at a half-kilometre walking distance. Every couple of days, I end up with a long list of errands and to-dos and I enjoy walking to our local market, just a 7-8 min walk away. Our grocery store, stationery store, drycleaner, vegetable vendor and tailor are all there and I can't tell you how much I enjoy going into each and every shop. I love shopping local, in small businesses (have I said earlier how much I detest malls? :)))) so this gives me a huge thrill! In the US, S and I would often argue about where to shop. I preferred buying supplies at the weekend farmer's markets but S would always like to shop at Safeway or Target (economies of scale=lower prices). At Noida too, because of where we lived, I had to get groceries delivered home or else drive to the supermarket which just didn't give me that local flavour.
I have recently discovered a walking group, a running group and a drum circle in the city. None of which I have the least intention of joining but what it proves is, one needs to just look a little below the surface and any city can and does yield up pleasant surprises. Yes, Gurgaon is hot and humid and freezing in turns, traffic is chaotic, people are crazy (!!!) and the infrastructure -- I could talk about it if it existed! But well, it's our home for the next few years and all the complaining I'm going to do about it will pertain to the weather only. I reserve that one inalienable right!

PS: Am I blogging too much? I have so much to say. If a lot of it is drivel, ah well...it'll be fun to read it all after a couple of years :)