Monday 13 July 2009

Gurgaon- New City

The Ship Building


You can only get in through toll gates!


The evening before leaving Delhi, I went to meet my mate, Dave (not his real name!), who works for Mackenzie which is based in Gurgaon, a new and fast-growing area of New Delhi. I guess I want to share these few pictures I took because seeing the 'suited and booted' emerging from their air-conditioned offices at 5pm, into the sweltering heat, was a surprise for me- pretty much the first evidence I've seen of the cyberboom that I've been reading about hitting India these past few years. Apart from mobile phones and huge advertising hoardings, tourists in India still see a lot of the former stereotypical sights: the monuments, the conservative dress, the poverty, the cows in the middle of the road etc etc. Gurgaon struck me as the place 'where it's at' for the young, up-and-coming, educated Indian. Dave and some of his friends described to me the kind of competition they're up against getting into university, college or a good company: no portfolios for art students, for example, because of plagiarism but three interviews and an hour and a half's exam in which they have to produce a piece of work (talk about pressure); to get his job at Mackenzie, Dave had to go through 9 rounds of interviews and tests- yes that's NINE. He asked me some of the questions he'd been asked (with little or no thinking time) and I was mainly stumped e.g. Why is a manhole round? (random), How would you estimate the annual coconut oil production of Kerala? All I can say is 'hats off to you' guys. The West should watch out because the young, educated Indians I've met recently are extremely capable, willing to work very hard and they're excited about their futures in a way I don't remember seeing much back home.

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