Gurugramwale: An oasis of intimacy

In the middle of a bustling city that’s looking up, life slows down in Leisure Valley park.

Gurugram is a world of dreams. Sky-kissing towers are clustered together in such a way that the place becomes New York to all those of us who are doomed to haplessly fumble through life without an American visa.

A park called Leisure Valley contains a life totally at variance with the rhythms of the fast, furious, business-like city of Gurugram. (HT Photo)

One smoggy afternoon we discover a most magical place in Gurugram — a public park so intimate that you could settle down there. The modestly named Leisure Valley contains a life totally at variance with the rhythms of the fast, furious, business-like city. Here the world seems to be on a long sabbatical. The scenes are serene: a middle-aged man and woman holding hands silently on a bench; a young man’s head on the lap of another young man; a woman with long black hair sitting alone under a tree, two lovers ensconced inside a pavalion, and a gang of teenage boys playing football.

The most beautiful sight is of a man in torn blue jeans lying along the grass, reading a hand-written journal. He does not once raise his eyes to look at the dismal grey sky.

Try to come here in the evening, the scheduled hour for the display of the ‘Ultra-fast Musical Fountain’. Since there is barely any water in the artificial pond, the system doesn’t work and you are simply relieved to witness that in this gleaming ultra-modern spot on earth, home to the successful, there continues to survive a little dysfunctional corner perhaps more like Meerut than Manhattan.