Have a look at Real Estate Gurgaon?
It is unmistakably the colony of the young, its marketplaces and restaurants teeming with EMI couples and their 'we-two-ours-two' children, and in the pale background, a dark melancholic Bihari maid. Across this district that has no clear perimeter anymore, work is in progress. It's more than just Delhi's satellite now.
Many more buildings are rising and piers are becoming bridges. There is no evidence here of any other time but the present, though Dronacharya is rumoured to have been born in one of the hamlets. The hint that a different population once lived in Gurgaon arrives sometimes in dramatic ways.
A housewife in Nirvana, a posh residential area, recalls the appearance of a rustic woman at her doorsteps. "I thought she wanted a job as a maid but then I realised she wanted to buy a house." And there lies the deeper story of Gurgaon's hidden but fortunate natives. Scions of the nomadic shepherds and farmers who once settled in Gurgaon and grew bajra, jowar and mustard in their arid lands, are today sudden beneficiaries of a spectacular revolution.
The rise of the BPOs in the last decade, the coming of other service industries, and the brute force of builder enterprise have converted almost worthless farmlands into properties that now fetch one to eight crore rupees per acre, a 500 fold increase over the last ten years in a generalisation. Landed farmers who till recently earned about Rs 15,000 per acre a year through farming, are millionaires now even by dollar standards. And the carnival is only intensifying. Last year, over 800 acres of land were transacted.
Big builders already own 10,000 acres in Gurgaon and they are buying more. In the delirium of sudden affluence, farmers are buying cars like the Skoda or Ford Endeavour on full down payment. Enchanted by the real estate industry, many are becoming land brokers. Some are lost to drinking and gambling. Women who used to wake up at four in the morning to finish household work, have today discovered bed tea. They even call it "bed tea". When two neighbours now cross each other in the lane, there is a silent duel in their minds to decide who would say "Ram Ram" first. "The man who is poorer should greet first," a farmer says of the new etiquette.
Villagers who till recently came together to conduct marriages, have learnt the art of grudging attendance and quick sophisticated exits. The social fabric of scores of villages has crumbled. There is competition, bitterness and jealousy. And diabetes. Of course, there is also the mirth of money and a new spirit of enterprise. And some desperate measures to understand wealth. Recently, five Jats walked into a school and asked the teachers, very politely, if there was a smart girl of marriageable age among their students.
The men told the baffled teachers that the family had earned three crore rupees from a land sale but they were all illiterate. They had decided one of the brothers should marry an educated girl who would know how to handle the money. Among the many fortunate farmers, is Chatar Singh, an unexcitable 56-year-old man with keen, hard eyes. His white kurta has stains here and there. In a conservative estimate, he is worth over 35 crore. He lives with two brothers and together they own five cars.
Like many farmers in this area, he has been selling land to purchase more land in the outskirts of Gurgaon. Now he owns 19 acres worth about Rs 20 crore, according to brokers. "This land around my house is worth 15 crore," he says sitting on a cot and smoking a hookah. His grandchildren go to schools that cost over a lakh a year. "Good schools," he says. "I went to a school where the teachers would come to the class and make sweaters." Chatar goes to wake up his younger brother, Surinder, who is in bed this afternoon. Surinder is in politics. "I was always interested in it," he says a bit sheepishly.
The youngest brother of Chatar is Satbir Singh who is a stout hairy man with a hectic look about him. He is in a towel that is wrapped around what have to be cycle shorts. His wife is veiled and is part of the background. His two teenaged sons are lying on a sofa like content pythons. "Money has changed everything. Man has no real friend left anymore in the village. Everybody is doing his own thing," he says. "Money teaches you new things. Till recently, we didn't know the heart could stop suddenly.
Now heart attacks are common." In old Gurgaon, an area that is also called a "village" in these parts, the glamour of the new developments gives way to overcautious pigs, narrow clogged lanes and the chaos of the mofussil. Old money lives here. Vijay Jain, who is called seth even by the new millionaires, is a large man with a gentle giant's manners. In him there is this force of rustic intelligence. His ancestors were village money lenders and generations of farmers have turned to his family for advice. Today, no farmer in the surrounding village sells his land without consulting Jain. Since the whole trade runs on trust, his role is crucial.
He advises farmers on the right price and tells them how to invest in more land in the outer fringes of Gurgaon. "Apart from land, I think it is a good idea for farmers to invest in making residential blocks with small rooms. There are lakhs of Bihari migrants here already. More will come. They need places to stay on rent. There is money in it," he says. He used to be a bridge between the builders and the farmers. "I have now retired," he says. People like him are vital to the builders because builders never buy land directly from farmers. There is always a village hand who brokers the deal.
The village hand is also called a "consolidator" because his job is to ensure the procurement of continuous swathes of land. Since land is usually owned jointly by brothers, the broker has to find ways to convince family members with opposing views. "Some brothers may want to hold on to the land for a better price, some may want to sell," says C Karthik, a real estate consultant. A farmer need not pay income tax on the earnings from the sale of his land if he uses the money to buy another piece of agricultural land within three years.
Even if this provision did not exist, the bullish farmers of Gurgaon would have invested in land. When 75-year-old Simrat Singh is asked his views on the easy-come-easy-go character of money, he says without blinking, "I have put my easy money in more easy money. I have bought land." He also bought a car, "a small car" but he does not know it is called Santro.
