Introduction
Dickens was almost right, till New Gurgaon happened. Here, change didn't arrive gently; it came crashing through. Seasons no longer turned, they shifted overnight. Fields turned into freeways, ponds into parking lots, and mustard flowers into billboards selling dream homes. The sun still rose over the Aravallis, but it now glinted off glass towers instead of dew. There was a time when change was something we lived through. Now, it is something we scroll past. Gurgaon, once a sleepy stretch of fields and kachcha roads, has transformed in a single generation into a skyline of ambition. What took centuries for London or Delhi to evolve, Gurgaon achieved in three decades, an entire civilization compressed into a construction schedule. This book is a journey through that transformation, through memory and metaphor, through loss and longing, through the ache of what was and the hope of what might still be. A CITY OF CONTRADICTIONS Few cities embody contradiction as completely as Gurgaon. It is both a city of aspiration and alienation, of abundance and absence, Here, the tallest towers rise beside broken pavements. The richest corporations look out over the poorest settlements. Luxury cars idle beside open drains. Progress and neglect exist not at opposite ends, but side by side, often in the same frame. And yet, amid this paradox, something deeply human persists use, for meaning. Beneath a yearning for connection and for pause, the hurried rhythms of construction and consumption, Gurgaon still holds echoes of its older self: a courtyard here, an ancient baoli there and an old shopkeeper who still greets customers by name. THE IDEA OF GURGAON The name itself carries an irony almost poetic Guru Gram, the village of the Guru, gifted by the Pandavas to their teacher, Guru Dronacharya. The very foundation of the city lies in reverence for wisdom. And yet, somewhere along the road from Guru Gram to Gurgaon, the city forgot its own meaning. This book is not just about nostalgia for an older Gurgaon, though there's plenty to miss. It's also about re-examining the idea of the city itself. What happens when growth outpaces grace? When speed overwhelms stillness? When a city becomes a marketplace before it becomes a home? THE FOUR MOVEMENTS This book unfolds in four parts like the four acts of a long, unhurried play. Prarambha (Where the Story Begins) revisits the long arc from epic beginnings of Gurgaon to the humble, human Gurgaon before industrialisation a city that had not yet forgotten its soil, its stories, or its soul. Parivartan (Echoes of Change) revisits the city's old rhythms, and how and when it started to change. When the city began to stir. shifting from fields to freeways, from courtyards to condominiums. A time when progress felt like promise and every brick carried the sound of beginnings. Patan/Pravas (Between What Fell Apart and What Drifted Away) traces what we lost in the pursuit of progress - the ecology, the neighbourliness, the reverence for learning, the simplicity of living. When the pace quickened and the pulse faltered, as roots loosened, rituals faded, and belonging turned to exile within one's own city. The stories here are not of destruction alone, but of quiet departures and of what slipped away without notice. Pratibimb (Reflections & Reconections) looks forward towards balance, compassion, and a quieter form of modernity that reclaims meaning without rejecting change. When memory turns from mourning to meaning searching for balance between the old and the new, the guru and the gadget, the home and the horizon. Here lies hope, that what was lost can still be remembered, and what remains can still be made whole. Together, they form a mosaic, not of nostalgia, but of remembrance with purpose. A CITY BETWEEN TWO TIMES To write about Gurgaon is to write about India in fast-forward. It is the story of a nation learning how to modernise without losing its moral compass. It is about the tension between roots and routes, between identity and aspiration. This is not a history of a city, it is a meditation on what it means to belong in times of transition. To remember what it means to have neighbours, not just networks. To value the shade of a tree as much as the shadow of a tower.
About The Book
GURGAON BETWEEN AMEMORY MODERNITY Every city has two stories, one that it tells the world, and another that it whispers to itself. The Gurgaon we read about in glossy brochures and real estate ads tells the story of progress: a skyline of glass, a grid of expressways and a catalogue of brands. But the Gurgaon that lives in these pages whispers another story one of loss, memory, and belonging. The author's voice here is not that of a critic, but of a custodian. Someone who has watched this city grow and lose itself in the growing. These essays are not nostalgic indulgences; they are acts of remembrance. They ask the uncomfortable questions progress often Ignores: What did we trade for convenience? What became of our values, our food, our community, our air? In these pages, Gurgaon becomes more than geography. It becomes a mirror for every Indian city hurtling toward modernity without a moral compass. The stories of disappearing seasons, forgotten shopkeepers, and children raised by screens are not Gurgaon's alone; they belong to Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, to all of us who have mistaken motion for meaning. What makes this work powerful is its tenderness. Each memory is offered like a diya in the smog, which is small, fragile, yet luminous. The book's strength lies in that humility: the understanding that cities, like people, can fall ill and recover; that nostalgia, when honest, can be an act of healing. Read this book slowly. Breathe between the lines. You may find that it's not merely about Gurgaon at all, it's about the part of us that still longs for a simpler sky.
About The Auhtor
Born and brought up in Gurgaon, Vikas Arya is an alumnus of Our Lady of Fatima Convent School, Gurgaon and the Regional Engineering College (now NIT), Bhopal (Computer Science). He is Founder ounder & Publisher, Aryan Books International. He has authored/edited/curated several books, including The Costume of Hindostan (Balt. Solvyns), India: The Land of Dreams and Romance (Mark Twain), 'No Horse (Mark Twain), 'No Horse No Aryans? Horse, Spoked Wheel and Harappans (B.B. Lal et al.), Sketches of Native Life in India (Charles Richard Francis) and more recently, Leaves from a Beautiful Life: Indian Travels and Paintings of Marianne North, 1877-79.
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