When Gurgaon (Gurugram) came up as a town—first with the Maruti Suzuki plant and then with the largely DLF-driven housing developments, it still followed the trajectory of any other city emerging out of the Indian hinterland, albeit in this case with a proximity to the national capital. However, what eventually made the “millennium city” stand out as one of India’s most aspirational urban spread came about during an early morning meeting in Chandigarh way back in 1991 over milky cups of morning tea.
As reminisced by K.P. Singh—the driving force behind DLF becoming the biggest realtor in the country and presently its chariman-emeritus—in his just-launched book ‘Why the Heck Not?’ (co-authored by Aparna Jain), during a morning meeting with then-Haryana CM Bhajan Lal, he pulled out glossy pics he had gotten clicked during a visit to Orlando to show Lal of an eighteen-hole golf course encircled by luxury high-rises.
“Gurgaon today... [is] filled with plots for homes, just like Delhi... Faridabad, and also has industrial areas. Don’t you want to be better than Delhi? Let’s take this area of Gurgaon I own. I want to build a golf course...high-rise office complexes, and residences around [it]—a flood of educated professionals [will come] to work in the swanky offices we will build... IT revolution has begun in Bangalore. Why should Haryana be left behind? We can build a knowledge city!”
While the jury may still be out on how successful (or a failure) Gurgaon may be as a civic entity let alone as a knowledge city, that it has been a catalyst for a monumental change—not just for Haryana and K.P. Singh’s company but for the way India looked at cities and its citizens looked at lifestyle—is in no absolute doubt.
The DLF townships there are a model for urban development today, being replicated elsewhere in the country. And the development in question in the anecdote above, the DLF Golf and Country Club and the luxury apartments around it called Camellias, Aralias and Magnolias are now a landmark in luxury living, with one apartment in Camellias hitting headlines when it was resold for 100 crores.
While Singh claims the book is not necessarily autobiographical—that honour probably goes to his first book, ‘Whatever the Odds’, published back in 2011, ‘Why the Heck Not?’ is still in pretty familiar territory, retracing his life story from his army days and early business work, before venturing into his ambitious nascency of DLF into its true potential in the 1980s and 90s. True to its claims of not being autobiographical, the story is not recounted in first person, though every chapter ends with some motivational quotes by the man himself.
But it is when it comes to the beef of the story, how Singh made friends and influenced enemies (except, perhaps, a certain Bansi Lal) and converted his grandiose visions into ground realities cutting through red tape and bureaucratic insolence, the authors keep the reader on a strict “need-to-know” basis, recounting all the many landmark tales, yet hardly scratching the surface.
DLF's K.P. Singh (left) and co-author Aparna Jain at the book launch of 'Why the Heck Not?' in New Delhi | Sanjay Ahlawat
Finally, all you come back with is just a consolidation of all the stories you’ve already read in magazine cover stories or YouTube videos, and nothing much more. Unless it is those rare tidbits like how he got a table, linen, crockery and silverware (and a private toilet) set for him at dhabas on the highway between Delhi and Chandigarh when he had to travel for meetings.
Worse perhaps, the book is at pains to paint the builder as an epitome of honesty and integrity and a stickler for following rules and regulations and being empathetic to those he dealt deals with, that at some point it almost feels like too sanitised and de-spiced to become a juicy morsel that can satisfy the curious reader completely.
Unintentionally as it may be, the book does give one essential blueprint for success in Lutyens Delhi, though, with its ringside view of bureaucratic meetings and evening soirees and how they form the basis of forming contacts and getting things done.
Why the Heck Not? Blueprints for Success from the Man Who Built DLF
Author: K.P. Singh and Aparna Jain
Published by: Viking Penguin
Pages: 321
Price: Rs 799 (Hardbound)
