Ambience Mall in Gurgaon

I was at the Ambience Mall in Gurgaon some days back which incidentally is just about 10 mins drive from my home and despite its inconvenient location, courtesy being bang on the Delhi-Gurgaon border and next to the 32-lane toll plaza, it makes more sense to me to come to this place, quickly park my car and go mall-hopping than go to the Metropolitan, spend anything like 40-45 mins to find a parking slot there on weekends and then keep on banging into the huge crowds there L. At least for me, going to the mall is more about having a casual walk there along with some shopping, eating, gaming and entertainment thrown in as add-ons without having to worry about somebody hitting my parked car or eloping with the laptop/music system in the car or avoiding the next swarm of mall-rats heading towards me aka Mumbai railway stations!

But alas visiting malls in Gurgaon is no more the kind of pleasure it was back in 2004, 2005 . Though there were very few malls on the MG road with only the MGF Metropolitan, DT City Centre, DT Mega Mall instantly coming to my mind but they were a welcome change for people long used to shopping in mud-filled, non-AC, poor-assortment stocking, and with untrained sales force kind of shops in conventional markets.

The multiplexes, the swanky showrooms, well-trained sales force, whole range of international cuisines to chose from, elevators, clean alleys, gaming zones, the discs, the bars, the food courts all gave a glimpse of what future could look like for Gurgaon, the millennium city, residents. But, like with so many other things, malls promised so much then and all those promises even today remain just that, promise!

We Indians have an old habit that just refuses to die and that is overdoing things. We first refused to accept malls thinking they were expensive and were a threat to our culture and when we did accept them we, true to ourselves, totally flooded them. Malls are full to the brim, in fact full is an understatement!

With so many new malls mushrooming all over Gurgaon, one expected things to be rosy. But, no matter which mall you go to, there are hoards of people. And that is what brings me to the Ambience Mall.

This is the mall that boasts of 1km shopping area on each floor on three or four floors with three level parking of the same size. But, contrary to my earlier experiences I discovered that no parking slot is free on Level 0 or Level 1 parking so I had to find my way down to the Level 2 parking. And that is after criss-crossing 1 km on each level ! Finally I parked the car and rached the lift lobby where to my surprise about 10-12 peole were waiting for the lift before me. The lifts that came to Level 2 were already full by then because people were boarding the lift on Levels 0 and 1. But didn't I say that there was no parking slot vacant on those levels. So where were these people coming from?? U 've got a mind of your own. Go and figure that out on your own!! Anyways, finally one lift came and most of the people got into it. And, after some more waiting I reached the ground level. I was really taken aback by the number of people there. It looked more like the Annual International trade fair at Pragati Maidaan on its very last day. Finally I managed to reach the Blu-O, the place where you can burn money pretty fast playing games hitherto unseen in India. But I was shocked to see that place. Not one more soul could get into that gaming zone. It was full of children, parents, youngsters, Grand-Pas and Grand-Moms! Don’t forget we are talking about gaming zone. I thought we as Indians were against indoor gaming J. And here was a motley mix of generations playing indoor games. And not one was person was coming out of that ring.

The world is having a tough time dealing with recession but Indians are having a great time burning dollars earned faking as a foreign agent in call centers or writing code for American/European clients. And that is why we cant find vacant places in our malls despite having so many malls now!

This is the new India. Un-afraid, Un-assuming, Un-fettered!

I didn’t want to wrestle with people around for a shot at some of my fav games and rather made my way to the Rockman’s Beer Island on the top floor about which we will talk in some other post. It is a fantastic place. So European, so calm, so serene! And yes it doesn’t have thousands of people. It is almost empty and you can spend hours there without worrying to order some more things to keep the waiters from telling you that we are here to do business and not to do some community service and providing them comfortable seating to sit on, big screen to watch football matches etc etc .

I miss those empty malls, those leisurely times I spent there! Till I write some more....