Gurgaon To Gurugram: A Short Biography

Each city lives in sets of layers and Gurgaon is no exception. Gurgaon to Gurugram explores these layers and reflects upon this ever-changing city.

Gurgaon is a city of paradoxes, of extremes and of opportunities. The face of the city changed remarkably, so did the fate of its inhabitants. The story began with the transition of the land, from the agricultural field to the real estate dividend. A new set of people started settling in Gurgaon who had the ambition of having their own house on a plot of land. A unique urban imagery was created to portray an attractive, global and aspirational impression of the city. More people came into Gurgaon for work and it has become a place for professionals and the educated class. The lower-end support personnel, too, kept on flocking into the city in search of livelihood. The erstwhile villages underwent demographic and physical transformations. Over the years, the glitz and gloss as well as a palpable social separation became a part of life in Gurgaon. Gurgaon was renamed Gurugram in 2016. The new name was inspired by Mahabharata, in which the village was donated as gurudakshina to Guru Dronacharya by the Pandavas. A city to which history had made very little sense so far, got a mythological connotation. Will the new name make it a better city or give it a new identity? Only time will tell.