GURUGRAM: Once upon a time on MG Road , there used to be a diner-cum-bar (‘Buzz’), a nightclub (‘Odyssey’) and a restaurant (‘Fox’), places to which people would come from afar. “They couldn’t believe they were in India!” remembers Rahul Singh, the man behind the hugely successful Gurugram-based The Beer Café chain.This is a city going places but MG Road, once its most recognisable brand as the Mall Mile , GURUGRAMhas been gradually fading away. Buzz, Odyssey and Fox have long left the strip. And while the ‘Mall Mile’ was losing its sheen, other locales emerged to steal its thunder, boasting enough of a hip factor to entice millennials away from ‘old’ New Gurugram.In the meantime, MG Road made more news for wrong reasons — drunken brawls on the road, harassment of women visiting the Mall Mile at night, frequent police raids at bars on suspicion of sex trade rackets operating from there and repeated complaints from residents about the area turning into a pickup spot.“Being the first such road in the entire Delhi-NCR, particularly in Gurugram, it attracted what I call a problem of plenty. As a result of which, there was a huge influx of nightclubs, bars and pubs ,” says Vyoum Ghai, the man behind Buzz. “When this problem sets in, there is competition and an acute need of footfall. I believe that, with time, the quality of people deteriorated. Because, ultimately, you need to fill up your place. The good crowd had options to move to, so they moved away to Cyber Hub and Golf Course Road.”But back in the day, MG Road was ‘the’ destination. It had no contender when it came to F&B, shopping and movies. “The first malls that sprung up in the city came up here,” reminds Vineet Taing, president, Vatika Hotels. “Gradually, real estate expanded. Then came Sector 29, Cyber Hub and Golf Course Road, and the crowd started dividing. With so many options, the number of visits to MG Road dropped.”So, as choice expanded, Gurugrammers were happy to sample a microbrewery in Sector 29, a fine-dining restaurant on Golf Course Road, or a quirky bar in Cyber Hub. The ‘trendy’ had gone out of Mall Mile.What made Mall Mile such a magnetIt wasn’t always so. In the mid-2000s, long before Gurugram became Gurugram, the city carried a certain allure, having risen, almost by stealth, from the scrub and farm land that once dominated Delhi’s southern extremities. And it was the neon shimmer of MG Road that would pave the way for the riches of Millennium City. If you were driving down from Delhi (in the days before metro), to your left would be Bristol Hotel, whose buzz and high energy felt like an oasis. Sahara Mall, with its top-floor nightclub (Odyssey) and mega bargain store, was a magnet for, respectively, the party set and families. A little ahead was the smaller First India Place, host of Fox, the town’s first restaurant of prominence. And next door was DT City Centre, opposite which was MGF Metropolitan, upscale (for their time) retail areas sharing space with movie theatres.Overnight, these two malls became the stomping grounds for Gurugram’s aspirational young, more NY swagger than chic London high street. Here, the experience of going out for a show at a swanky cinema wasn’t complete without a slap-up meal. MG Road’s star shone bright, as the promise of a life of comforts, and one, also, of quiet retirement, gave Gurugram a cachet that proved irresistible to many.Little by little, however, bottlenecks began to crop up. “For a good three years, metro work was taking place, so everything was dug up. Then came the parking issues, and whatever space was left was encroached on,” Taing recalls.Because MG Road offered easy access to the Capital, traffic jams became a little too frequent. And with more people thronging the malls, room for basement parking shrunk. “The government couldn’t provide any parking outside because the road had expanded,” Taing says. “And entries to the malls got choked because of the encroachments, while service lanes got encroached. And on New Year’s Eve, MG Road would get shut down.”…And what dragged it downSoon, the vibe changed, the wholesome giving way to the tacky. Suddenly, MG Road started receiving a bad rap. “It has become a bit of a shady place for reasons we all know,” says Vikram Nair, promoter of Khaaja Chowk, likely the oldest standalone restaurant on the stretch (12 years and still going strong). “It all started off at a mall where they had, basically, a string of pubs and nothing else – except Haldiram’s. And from there began this entire culture of people being beaten up and women being molested,” Nair adds. Then it kind of spread slowly but very insidiously, to all over the place. It’s unfortunate that it’s become like that.”Besides, the way the malls were run meant operational and economic stability was never a given. “The moment you give a mall on ‘sold’ basis, the owners of the shops only want the rent. They don’t care about who owns it. So, it could be a paan shop next to a sari shop next to a bar,” Singh says. “The tenant just has to pay rent. Now, the tenant could be a shady bar, which is what has happened. And one shady place becomes a second, then a third – then there is no control.” Thus, the tawdry behaviour of a few ended up wrecking the earnest efforts of the many.In such circumstances, visitors may shy away and restaurateurs can shut shop, but residents don’t have the option of relocating. Even the straightforward act of entering and exiting City Centre Mall — or any other building, for that matter — is a challenge at the best of times with autos and rickshaws monopolising space. “Coming out of and getting into buildings here is a nightmare,” says Taing.But still positives to countMore’s the pity, for this road had so much going for it, even with Gurugram’s other alternatives. “It has connectivity, it has the metro, it is the most centrally located, its closest to Delhi, it’s next to the highway. Also, it’s got offices, it’s got lots of residences and the best captive audience,” says Singh. According to Nair, MGF Metro currently has the highest footfall of all the malls on MG Road. Meanwhile, the cinemas here (and a few shops, besides) are doing comparatively well. Still, if more resources were set aside for cleaning up and revamping the stretch, and if the malls were more invested in their running, there’s no reason why the spirit of those pioneering days cannot return to MG Road.

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