A Gurugram story through Delhi eyes

Despite the city’s impressive rise, Sayal continues to miss how Delhi used to put him at ease. “Delhi felt homely,” he says. “Neighbours knew each other, they talked, gathered, and shared meals.”

When SK Sayal, at the age of 47 moved to Gurugram almost a decade ago, he arrived with the confidence of a veteran builder and the sentimentality of a Delhi resident. After spending more than thirty years working in the real estate sector, developing projects such as Gurgaon One in Sector 22A and Central Park on Golf Course Road, in 2010 Sayal decided to move to the city he had helped shape..

SK Sayal. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

What he admires most about Gurugram is its restless energy, pace of construction, gleaming corporate corridors, and the cultural atmosphere created by migrants from across India. Sayal says, “Gurugram caters to every class, every ambition. It is the embodiment of the modern India I envisioned. But growth has come with its strains. The imbalance between the expanding population and the city’s social infrastructure is becoming increasingly visible.”

Despite the city’s impressive rise, Sayal continues to miss how Delhi used to put him at ease. “Delhi felt homely,” he says. “Neighbours knew each other, they talked, gathered, and shared meals.” That everyday warmth, he believes, is missing in Gurugram. In gated societies and neighbourhoods, people live side by side but rarely form the ties that define community.

Gurugram’s vibrant nightlife and late-evening social rhythm don’t appeal to him either. “I’am an early-to-bed, early-to-rise person,” he says, adding that fulfilment comes from visiting friends at home, sipping tea, and engaging in long, meaningful conversations.

Sayal is also the author of “Inside Unreal Estate: A Journey through India’s Most Controversial Sector”, an account of India’s evolution in the real estate landscape. His work has earned him national recognition, including the Lifetime Achievement Award by White Page International and honours from the World Federation of Marketing Professionals for his contribution to the sector.

Yet, after shaping parts of Gurugram’s skyline, Sayal remains emotionally tied to Delhi. “I am proud of what I built here. But a part of me will always belong to Delhi,” he says, adding that he acknowledges the duality between the city he helped create and the one that created him.

His story echoes the broader journey of urban India—ambitious, expanding, yet still searching for deeper social roots. Gurugram may rise higher each year, but Sayal believes it will take time before it develops the effortless sense of belonging that Delhi offered. After all, he says, roots take far longer to grow than buildings.

(He is a resident of Gurgaon One apartment in Sector 22A and managing director and CEO, Bharti Real Estate)