The outsider: A decade of working, learning and growing in Gurugram

For Bisht, convenience remains an important part of the city’s appeal. She enjoys its food options and the ease of going shopping or catching a film without travelling too far

Work brought 35-year-old Komal Bisht from Uttarakhand’s Haldwani to Gurugram in 2015. As an architect, she belongs to a profession closely connected to the way cities take shape. However, what has kept her connected to the Millennium City over the years goes beyond its modern amenities.

An architect, 35-year-old Komal Bisht moved to Gurugram from Uttarakhand’s Haldwani in 2015. (HT Photo)

A resident of Uniworld in Sector 47, Bisht appreciates the convenience of having shopping centres, movie theatres and food options close to home. For her, Gurugram makes everyday life easier by keeping so much within reach.

“It is a civilised city, and I like the people here,” she says.

However, Bisht says that Gurugram is much more than the glass-fronted offices, sprawling residential complexes, corporate ambitions and ever-expanding roads. For those who arrive from other towns and cities, the experience of living here is also shaped by the people they meet and the professional worlds they enter.

For Bisht, Gurugram has been a place of learning. Her work has exposed her to new experiences and helped her grow professionally, while the years spent here have strengthened her emotional attachment to the place.

For Bisht, convenience remains an important part of the city’s appeal. She enjoys its food options and the ease of going shopping or catching a film without travelling too far. Yet, she also cooks for herself, maintaining the everyday routines that make a house feel like home.

“There is a quieter side to this urban life that often gets lost in conversations about Gurugram’s rapid growth. The city is associated with speed, ambition and long working hours, but belonging is built through ordinary moments: returning to a familiar apartment, finding a favourite place to eat or settling into a neighbourhood whose rhythms have become second nature,” she said.

As an architect, Bisht belongs to a profession closely connected to the way cities take shape. Gurugram’s transformation offers ample opportunities for professionals, even as its expanding urban landscape raises questions about infrastructure, public spaces and liveability. For residents, the experience of a city is ultimately measured not only by what is being built, but also by how comfortably they can live in it.

Bisht’s story is not one of dramatic decisions to leave her hometown behind. Instead, it is about the gradual discovery of a second place to belong. Haldwani remains the city she came from, but Gurugram has given her years of professional experience, opportunities to learn and memories of a life built away from home.

Perhaps that is the quiet achievement of a city that attracts people from everywhere. It does not have to replace the place where they grew up. It simply has to make room for them to grow.

For Bisht, Gurugram began as a destination chosen for work. More than a decade later, it has become something more personal: a city she has learnt from, grown attached to and, in her own way, made her own.

Bisht is an architect, and lives in Uniworld, Sector 47.