Mogamboville, Ahoy!

Cars enter the gates of Gurgaon city guarded by mechanical toll booths that silently mimic a “Hail Mogambo” and raise their arms with a beep to welcome all those who have chosen, or rather been chosen to serve the half-foreign ruler of the town. The skyline, marked by western design inspired buildings, brings the uncanny blond color to the king’s mane. The king taps his fingers on an upturned bowl of light and talks in a tone that is Indian enough to recognize itself with Amrish Puri. His appearance shows that he is evidently not of an Indian origin. The golden in his hair and the gold on his coat conceal his real identity from the city that marks his kingdom. But, his voice is a strong mixture of Indian dialects, and why shouldn’t it be? An ethnic mix of Indians is what breathes life into this city that wears a façade of greenhouses branded by multi-national corporations.

We all serve the king, and express joy on having made it to his army that moves on a conveyor from Sikanderpur to HUDA City Center. The cogs slide along metal tracks and push members of the infantry at their allocated work areas, to either screw pieces together or hold things in place by being pieces themselves. The flash of a Metro card beeps in tune with a hundred other beeps that mark entry time at an adjoining building. Business cards get exchanged in thousands, giving clear tool usage instructions that we also wear as thin pieces of plastic hanging by our necks.

It’s not just the mechanical sounds that drive us to this kingdom. The colorful attire of our lead actress, who stands tall, wearing shreds of white, red, pink and blue, is another feature that draws us to the sub-urb, where she lives up to her “hawa-hawaii” image by anglicizing her name to Air-tel. With dreams to woo her and move from one step on the ladder to another, we march to the kingdom; the kingdom of dreams.

A part of the machinery, we all, are little heroes marching to save the world; a world that comprises three inhabitants on the 4^th floor of an apartment building post 9 p.m. We are saviors of our little lives that are cloned by the king in his massive factories made of glass. We are heroes; the Mr. India’s who are bound by the ticking of the three needles on our wrist bands, which will one day make us invisible. The needles tick through the day, working their magic spells to grant us the power of invisibility, and in a matter of weeks, we stand in the middle of a crowd, crying over our invisibility.

Invisibility, we thought, was synonymous with invincibility, but it didn’t turn out the way expected. Sifting through pieces of glass, we then work towards finding the one that would turn us into visible beings; finding ways to stand out in the crowd, even if through a glass stained with red. It’s funny; life in the city of Gurgaon. The power of the wrist band ticks over the pulse of our heroes, but Mogambo still expresses his happiness unperturbed, "Mogambo khush hua!"

Image Source: shekharkapur.com