Greetings Internet!! While I was born in a small town Gwalior, immediately upon my birth my family shifted to this new upcoming big city in making, Gurgaon. Therefore, I have no memories of my original birthplace but Gurgaon…Where do I even begin with when it comes to what this city has done to me, its magic, its charm, and its allure is just indescribable.
My earliest childhood chapters are from when I was age 3. Every Sunday dad and I would go on our little solo father-daughter date to all the new eateries, and big shopping malls, buying new clothes at Westside, where I’d be waiting outside the trial room holding my dad’s belongings for literally hours since he’s the King of men’s fashion. But I didn’t mind the long waiting hours, I loved being in Dad’s company. There was always something new to know about life, people, and society with him. He was learning the modern way of life and also taught me whatever he could to little me.
When it came to shopping for me, it was pretty simple. All I wanted was colourful clothes, preferably tiny mini skirts with sleeveless tops and a few pairs of heels. I was a glamorous girl as a kid, much different from the elegant, sophisticated woman I’ve grown into. This one time, I saw a girl on TV wearing a bathrobe, and dad had come from the office at 11, and I cried so hard, stubborn me took dad to a really expensive kids emporium ( the name obviously I don’t recall) at 11.
By the time we reached, it was 11:30 already, and the store was almost closing but since it was an expensive one they treated their customers like a god, and there I got my first ever 5000 bucks bathrobe. I felt powerful that night; it was like a win in a way. I was happy, Dad was happy, and we came home happily!!
Food…I tried KFC with Dad at the opening of Gurgaon’s South End Mall (correct me if the name’s not exactly the same). Ahh! What was that day like!! Sunshine was pouring on us through the giant glass windows while we sat inside eating our KFC in a chilled AC environment, surrounded by affluent happy, inspiring people. I didn’t like the chicken but I did love the soft-serve ice cream they served.
Later that day, we also did a huge grocery shopping also at one of the department stores in the same mall but it was nothing like your above-average grocery stores even, boy it was boujeeee!!!
All different kinds of meats of animals whose names I had not heard ever. You could find every possible ingredient or grocery there which you could not even think of. And just like that, we went to boujee Korean restaurants, and Chinese restaurants all over Gurgaon driving through flyovers and bypass surrounded by high rise residential and commercial buildings. And although I always wanted to own all of them, what I wanted the most then and even now, is those DLF, Deloitte, YES Bank, Met life corporate offices, seeing those buildings and offices just makes my heartbeat go thumping and so fast, not even a boy had ever got my feeling like that.
Dad, obviously loved cars, duh like which man doesn’t??!!! And now even women, including me but anyways, he would take me Tata stores and we’d go on test drives in new cars. Again those stores had those kind of people coming who just make you feel something, I was proud to be a part of this crowd, proud of my dad for giving me this beautiful life and all its accessories. We would go to Diwali Melas, Christmas Carnivals, all the new sales all over Gurgaon. We would go to Landmark and buy expensive books which hell I never read but I liked the feeling of buying them from Landmark and then telling about it the next day to all my girles.
Mind you, our dates weren’t limited to this urban Gurgaon only. NO way!! We enjoyed buying cheap sabzi and random articles from old Gurgaon’s Saddar Bazar. We even loved the Jalebis the Sardar Ji made at his shop in saddar bazar, the famous dal roti shop as well. (IYKYK) Mom did all her saree and actual jewellery shopping from Raaj Jewelers.
All my weekends went like this, not even a single weekend we stayed home or did not do something fun. And random strolls till sector-31 and sector-14 market, Om sweets, Bikanerwala are not to be missed.
Week days were bomb too, why wouldn’t they be? I was studying at dps-45, yes I was in primary and middle school at that time but dps kids are really ahead of their age when it comes to….well everything- both studies and fun. Hell, I had my first boyfriend in seventh grade, his name was Shaurya, his looks resembled a lot to Robert Pattinson. He was a popular guy, yet stayed low key. At school, I would bunk classes with my friend Ritvika. Our friendship was like Blair and Serena from Gossip Girls, I was the IT girl and she was the studious one. We liked the same guys, we abused the same bitches and mean girls in exactly the same way, in fact that’s waht really connected us but we both were always competing with each other. She always outdid me in academics and I aced the social gossip rumors and boys thing. I bunked so many classes and did so many other things that in middle school itseld I had been to the headmistress’s office thrice and once I even got a red card. I was the girl who was always stopped in the middle of the corridor for wearing short skirts and pitting lip balm, like seriously?!! But ya, almost everyone new me, we had sections till L so you can estimate the number of people we had.
Ritvika and I stalked hot boys playing football in the summer heat, such a sight it was!! Washroom toh har class ke baad jaana hota tha hamne, that made us even more popular. The attention was certainly contoversial or maybe not positive but it wasn’t negative either! After dispersal, we went to boys washroom this one time when obviously there was no one because dps had real nice washroom interior and we wanted to see the color combination and the monochromatic look of boys washroom so we did. We were just two authentic girls who were way ahead of their time. I ate canteen food everyday, my mum would never bother to cook lunch for me…but we had a sick canteen, it was really sick.
I participated in dance related things, though never read a single book out of the thousand amazing books of all different genres available at the dps library. I went for movies, sometimes even sports, aerobics, did yoga, choir, cooking without fire but never any Olympiad or GK Quiz lol. I had my second boyfriend in 8th grade, the boys name was Aryan Joon, it was a summer romance, and I ended it after the summer vacation. Hell my girlfriends were so envious that they literally complained about us to the headmistress, lol.
The 13 years of my childhood, in Gurgaon were like me flying, flying each day, higher & higher. my feet were legit not on ground. And now that its been 10 years since I’ve just been on ground, haven’t flied…have not taken any risks, just been playing safe, and it fucking sucks! I have one year, and next year I will be where I belong, my heart, my home, my Gurgaon <3. Ye sheher nahi mehfil hai, sapno ka sheher hai, khudko phirse paa lene ka sheher hai, iss sheher mein junoon hai, jitna kuch khoya hai inn das saalo mein uss sabko phirse paa lungi mein.
Nasrun Minallahi Fathun Karim