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29 October 2007

Driving to Gurgaon

At the end of Aurobindo Marg, the traffic has slowed to footpace as those who want to turn left are mostly in the right lane and those who need to go straight are everywhere. But during this gridlock--one of many that there will be--the Qutab Minar emerges above an island of neem, imli and pilkhan. Against an ashen midmorning sky, it stands taller and lovelier than at any other time of day.

Several minutes and near-misses later, we manage to make the required left turn towards the Mehrauli-Badarpur intersection. We’re in the middle lane now with every kind of mid- and high-capacity passenger carrier on either side heading for us--classic v-formation flying, only much more fun because members of the flight have flouted every rule of relative motion. We slow down again, approach the intersection, then stop: This is a red light we’ve always caught. But now we’re free to look at the newly constructed Crescent Mall, hotspot for haute couture. In about three minutes we’ve covered some nine hundred years of history.

The light changes and we push ahead, only to stop again, at a checkpoint. It isn’t cops who stop us; it is that four packed lanes of cars are merging into a single six-foot-wide split between the police barriers. But we look left, like we do every morning, to be struck, like we are every morning, by the fifty-tonne statue of Mahavir sitting in defiant repose. We inch through the barriers and, suddenly, the road opens up to us. We cruise at a comfortable forty, passed the neglected but doggedly beautiful greens of Delhi’s only archaeological park, and promise ourselves to visit the tombs of Balban, Jamali and Kamali once the weather turns.

Andheria More arrives quicker than we expect. Sailing through a cattle slalom course we come to the Chhattarpur crossing. We won’t turn left, towards the glamorous new temple complexes and the even more glamorous farmhouses down that road, but head straight, workwards. We now travel through a landscape of synchronous destruction and construction--between the casualties of the MCD’s demolition drive and dusty Metro work sites. We dodge potholes and call-centre Qualises and more free-range cattle. Our destination is soon closing in on us. As we drive by the thicket that is the Arjun Garh Air Force Station, tempers run higher, patience thins further. On the verge of fulmination we hit the Haryana border. Home free, finally, we glide down the road into Gurgaon.

For the many thousands of us (official figures range from anywhere between thirty thousand and three hundred thousand commuters) who make the journey down MG Road from Delhi to Gurgaon every workday morning, the ride isn’t easy. But for those of us willing to feel it, amidst the honk and screech, the barbaric energy, there emerges a unity and force. Like, say, Bartok’s Piano Concerto no. 1 or Bacon’s SEATED FIGURE, the experience, though never concessionary, allows us to see that the lives of all lie within and without us.