Gurgaon... Down memory lane... From the eyes of a Chennaite! :)

Torn between immense love and unbearable pain, I could never decide how I should have thought of moving to Gurgaon? I'll just tell my story and let you decide that, I guess. 

I am but a simple punjabi girl, born and brought up in Chennai. I was a Chennaite thru and thru and in some ways will always be.:) But Gurgaon is where I 'grew up'; it has brought me both my deepest happiness & strongest hurt. 

Its almost been nine years & as I walk through my memories, I watch them as sites- some I stop to stare and smile at, relive & let the happiness they brought then, spread through my heart again; while others I quickly jump over, not wanting to wallow over the misery they'd spring. As I take this walk, I realise that through it all- I have lost myself a couple of times- never to my credit realising the exact time to change my path. But mostly what I realise is how much I have grown along with this city. A city which immediately took me in its folds- a 22 year old, friend-less girl who had moved here to set up home!

Hmmm, so I was 22 when I got married and moved here, and there are reasons why I have always felt a common thread between my own life and this city. Some of us grow up in a hurry, always doing certain things much before the 'right' time and naturally the choices made in the innocence of those years, have lasting impacts on our lives.  Gurgaon for one has a similar histor. It was hit by a tag "Millenium City" and all multi-nationals from around the world just descended upon it, without giving it much time to naturally grow. So it literally had to grow up in a hurry- without any proper infrastructure or investments; and its only claim to fame being its distance from the Capital city and the New Delhi Airport! 

Let me tell you the developments I have witnessed in 9 years, so you get the true idea of the picture I paint. There was no NH8 then or the toll or God-forbid-the-Ambience Mall. No flyovers, or drain pipes or even decent roads! When I moved to Malibu Towne on Sohna Road, there really was pretty much nothing else on that road. While driving to Gurgaon from Sohna, one could easily see the tall white buildings all the way from Badshahpur 'coz there were no other high-rises. Mud roads, water clogging and traffic jams- was a 'way of life' all over Gurgaon. As was no-electricity, no transportation & no grocery shops. The postal department probably did not even have a proper address for those of us living on Sohna Road- no sector or real pin code. We were lucky if posts ever reached us. 

So there I was at 22,  moved from a city filled with friends and tradition to a non-friendly, almost cold land (literally and emotionally) and I didn't like it one bit. I missed Chennai constantly- the idlis and the friendly cappi, beaches and the 'malli poos', the traditions and order of my childhood city, not to mention my friends and family. Gurgaon didn't have anything to offer in compensation, except its much talked about "big-airconditioned malls". 

In those days, we had to go all the way to Sahara Mall for our monthly grocery shopping at Big Bazaar. (I still remember there first "Republic Day Sale" like it was yesterday. The customer que outside Big Bazar then, was legendary. Not something any retailer will ever see again. Phew!)

Coming back, I remember the pain making of NH8 caused. The 4 hour long traffic jams... I remember when the metros were built and those roads turned useless. I remember when the regular roads and drainage pipes started appearing all over the city. I remember each and every high rise being built on Sohna road... Banging hammers, construction vehicles, road blocks, traffic jams, water clogging, this city and the people in it have literally seen it all. And maybe that's what makes Gurgaon so special to people like me- who weren't born here but made it our home, 'coz the city literally grew all around us. 

Its special 'coz we were here before the city as you know it now, was! 

Road Drama!

I had dropped my daughter to play school and was returning home. I had switched on the indicator and was patiently waiting to turn right on the main road, seeing a choke created at the intersection coz everybody was in a hurry to tackle each other & save the few seconds. I was thinking in my head, how much easier it wud be if people just have some patience. Finally I crossed the road to take a right, only to... 'Bang!' A guy driving a swift on my left banged the side of my car. He had wanted to come from my left and take a right! (Now wait, isn't that against the driving rules-"Do not over take from the left?") And guess what, instead of apologizing he and his oh-so-devoted-wife, started screaming & blaming me for not seeing "both" my rear view mirrors before turning right! The lady just kept going on & on, (from the passenger seat) screaming on top of her voice, and blaming me for the mistake. I actually told her to please behave herself as I was trying to have a civil conversation with her husband, who had been driving. I explained that it was not my fault and that the scratch & dent on my XUV could have been avoided, had they not tried overtaking from the wrong side... But the "educated couple" just kept screaming. Finally I said 'Ditch it!' and decided to move on, rather than create another choke point in the middle of the main road, only to hear the couple scream "Idiot!" at me. Sigh!!!

Now I'm thinking- why are we women soooo protective of our husbands? Do we truly believe they are capable of no wrong? Where does education play a role if we can't even behave civil with a complete stranger? And why is it always a contest of the 'who-will-shout-the-loudest'? Do people genuinely believe that if two people scream together at one person, the other will back off? Is it too much to expect some decency? We are after all living in an educated city like gurgaon! Double Sigh!!!

Pixie Dust will now manufacture at.... Drum Rolls.... La Petite!

I have been canvassing the vicinity for a good play school for Ami. I must have seen at least ten and spoken to another half a dozen on phone and finally this weekend we chose La Petite.

I'm going to try and walk you thru my decision. Or an account on 'here's why I did it'... Well originally I had a thing about BIG names! La Petite was GD Goenka and I wasn't looking for a 'brand' for the play school I send my daughter to. But then they won me over in ways I feel is hard to explain but I'm sure going to try...

Active Management: I liked the involvement of the management. The fact that I visited them when the school was off & the Principal was available to talk to me the first time around (when most of her teachers were on a break), appealed to me. She painstakingly spent more than half an hour with me answering all kinds of basic questions I had, about the set up and convinced me that my child would be in good hands.

Clean & Hygienic: Some of the playschools in the vicinity have sooo much promise- there activities for toddlers are really something(some maybe La Petite should look into & ape), but they loose out on this factor which to me is a very important criteria for where I send my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect hospital like antiseptic-dettoled up everything, but if my child is to spend 3 hrs of her day everyday in any place, I expect it to be clean enough for her to keep going back day-after-day without falling sick. Play schools are known to have the hazard of infections, through contact with other kids but can we minimize it please? So La Petite won that one for me hands down  It was THE most clean play school I visited in the last 3 weeks.

Montessori: It is a Montessori play school and I like the fact that they have a lot of these materials in all their classrooms. I think this subtle way of teaching is far more effective in someways. (A footnote follows)

Daycare: They had a decent daycare facility for kids. Not something I need immediately but I liked the fact that if sometime in the future I do decide to go back to working, my daughter will have a nice daycare facility readily available in a place she would be used to. 

Happy place: Somehow this was the crux of the whole thing for me. From friendly staff to brightly lit classrooms and corridors, sandpits to splash pools, activity room in the basement to pottery wheels outside; everything about the place just committed happiness to me. It just screamed that Ami will be happy here. 

And at the end of the day isn't that, what all parents want? That when our child returns home, we can go down on our knees and ask him/her, not "What did you learn today?" but "Was school fun? Are you happy?"  I know I'll be happy if my child just nods, smiles & wants to go back the next day. :)

Footnote: 

Maria Montessori's story: A little girl once saw a wet sticky caterpillar trying to come out of a cocoon. She kept watching with wonder. The caterpillar gradually tried to spread out its wings waiting for them to dry. In order to help the caterpillar she brought a fan to hasten the process and enable the caterpillar to dry the wings faster and with ease.

The caterpillar’s wings drying unevenly and in haste did not open at all and the caterpillar toppled over, never to fly as a butterfly.

The girl learnt a huge lesson that day, that nurture has to be a very aware and conscious process according to the natural needs and growth pattern of the child. It cannot be as what we think it should be, at our convenient time and according to our unreal expectations .

La Petite is situated at Malibu Towne, Sohna Rd, Gurgaon.