Welcome to New New Delhi

During my first couple of weeks with Evalueserve, my Indian employer, I was put through an intensive induction training programme. One of the sessions focused on primary research and how to talk effectively on the phone. It was very interactive and included opportunities for us to practice phone calls and give feedback to each other. So during these practice sessions, one of my colleagues picks up the phone and says: "Hello, this is Mayank calling from Gurgaon. I would like to speak with …" Once the call was over, the manager gave Mayank the following feedback: "You say Gurgaon like it's New York City. Tell them you are calling from Evalueserve."

To many Indians, Gurgaon could as well be New York City. It has developed into a major business centre and all the big multinational corporations like Microsoft, Ericsson, IBM, Alcatel-Lucent, McKinsey, Accenture, Coca-Cola or Unilever have offices there. It is also home to many home-grown IT-enabled services companies. When you say "offshore hub", most people in the UK think of Bangalore, which is where the whole craze started. However, there are now many other offshoring locations in different parts of India – Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Noida and Gurgaon, to name a few. Unlike in Bangalore, the focus in Gurgaon is not on software development or IT infrastructure outsourcing – here it's mostly business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and there is also a large car manufacturing presence on the edges of the town.

Gurgaon is located approximately 30 kilometres southwest of New Delhi, conveniently close to Indira Gandhi International Airport. I often get asked: "Does it belong to Delhi then?" The answer is – yes and no. Officially, it is part of the National Capital Region (NCR). On the other hand, it is located a different state, Haryana, and when you travel between Delhi and Gurgaon, you have to cross a state border. For simplicity, think of Gurgaon as Delhi's high-tech suburb and the destination of most foreigners' business trips to Delhi. The development of Gurgaon started essentially around the year 2000, as Delhi itself was already too crowded and there was a need to build new Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to take advantage of the offshoring industry boom.

On one of my trips to Goa, I met a woman who was selling jewellery on the beach. She told me she was originally from Delhi but had not been back for over 10 years. When I mentioned Gurgaon to her, she remembered it only as a village. I suppose she would have been quite shocked if she saw all those glass offices, shopping malls and high-rise apartment blocks. Gurgaon is sometimes referred to as the "New New Delhi". You might be aware of the distinction between Old Delhi and New Delhi. Old Delhi, in the north, is crowded and relatively backward, while New Delhi, in the south, has lots of greenery, wide boulevards and colonial buildings designed by the British architect Luteyns.

Gurgaon takes the division between "Old" and "New" to the next level and people sometimes call it the "New New Delhi". Many well-off Delhiites have moved here, although the majority of workers still commutes to Gurgaon from south Delhi. The ambitions for developing Gurgaon are high, and the construction work goes on 24/7. The often-repeated phrase is "building a world-class city". However, the lack of basic infrastructure is a major obstacle to this goal. With all the impressive office buildings and malls, it is easy to forget that 10 years ago, Gurgaon was just a village. You can't expect things to happen overnight – the urban development authority is only slowly waking up.

I am including an excerpt from my first letter home which I wrote 3 days after arriving in Gurgaon. These were my initial impressions:

We live in a suburb of New Delhi called Gurgaon, in a state called Haryana. Gurgaon is an emerging technology and business centre and there is a lot of construction work going on. The multinationals such as Microsoft, Canon, BMW and also Evalueserve (the company I work for) all have offices in fancy glass and metal "towers". It seems that any modern glass and metal building here is called "tower", even if it's not very tall and its shape is more like a cube. Sangit [a local guy we met through Hospitality Club] tells us the towers are mostly built by a company called DLF (Delhi Leasing and Finance) and apparently they are not as great inside as they look from the outside. The owner of DLF is supposed to be one of the richest people in India. Although the towers look very glamorous, you have no trouble remembering that you are in India and not Canary Wharf. Within five minute's drive of the Microsoft headquarters, you find yourself on a mudtrack and the ride can only be described as resembling safari.

The main thing we don't like about Gurgaon so far is that you can't really walk anywhere. When I say it's because the streets are dirty, it sounds like I am some spoilt kid. But I mean they are really dirty. The road is basically mud with giant puddles and rubbish dumped everywhere. There are also a lot of guys hanging around on the street who seem to have nothing to do and stare at us a lot. You hardly see any women outside. So when we want to go anywhere, we need to go in a car, which is really annoying. The cab drivers usually don't speak English so I will have to start learning Hindi soon. So far I only know "hello" and "no".