Quite often we take things for granted without realizing how fortunate we are to have those things, and how life would be in their absence. I have many reasons to feel that we are lucky to be living in GK2. We have an affluent market in M Block with well stocked departmental stores, bakeries, hairdressers, beauty clinics, hardware stores etc. There are tea/coffee lounges, good restaurants, numerous banks, showrooms and so on. There was a time, many years ago, when one had to go to adjacent colonies like GK1 to get many items, because our market was not developed and there were very few retail shops.
The top schools of Delhi are located in GK2 – The KR Mangalam World School and Don Bosco. Whereas lots of children for these schools come from faraway places in buses and cars, our lucky kids just walk across. There is also a charitable school like the Garib Niwaj School and charitable Balwant Rai Mehta school, to cater to the children of our domestic helps, drivers etc, should they want to educate them there.
We have all places of worship like Mandirs, Gurdwaras, and even a church in W Block. There is a prominent hospital – The Fortis La Femme in S Block to cater to any medical emergencies, along with other clinics, nursing homes etc.
In our sports complex, there is a skating rink, two tennis courts and a badminton court. There are also basketball and volleyball facilities at Don Bosco & the KR Mangalam World School in the evenings. I do wish that our children would use these facilities more, than is the case at present.
We have spacious and beautiful parks in all our blocks. I can’t think of any locality which has so many and so spacious parks as GK2. Our central park at W block is literally a mini forest with separate walking / jogging tracks, sitting areas, rain refuges and so on. Again I wish our residents would use these parks more, both for physical exercise as well as for socializing.
We are fortunate to have the huge Jahanpanah forest around us – it helps to increase the fresh air and oxygen content in the air of our colony and contain pollution. Also, the very fact that we are located in South Delhi in a very open environment, with such a lovely undulating topography is a huge plus point.
As with any situation there are negatives too – it is quite expensive, relatively speaking. For example, if a fruit costs Rs 50/kg in nearby Govindpuri or Kalkaji, it will probably be Rs 75/- in GK2, and the same goes for a lot of other things – the price you pay for living in an affluent area. Also, lots of people use GK2 as a thoroughfare for commuting to Okhla, Faridabad and so on, thus creating traffic problems for us. The greatest negative in my opinion is the rush of construction activity – old (sometimes beautiful) houses being pulled down to make way for these new multi-storeyed unaesthetic buildings, with the resultant noise and dust and construction labour all around, not to mention the hundreds of malba laden trucks racing around. But then, I suppose, this is happening all over the city.
However, all said and done, I feel the positives outweigh the negatives and so here’s three cheers for GK2 !!!
