GURGAON or (GUR)GOBARGAON ??

Gurgaon has been famous for its hospitality... NOT!

As a frequent wanderer in this city, with my wife for a few years now, if there is one thing I have learned about this system forsaken concrete forest is this;

"You are never safe in this city."

Remember, the Metallica Fiasco back in October 2011?

However, the unfortunate thing is that the majority of Delhi NCR's youth spends most of their daily hours here. Be it for work or leisure.

I have had my fair share of bad experiences in this city and thus I will prefer ANY restaurant/pub/store/market in proper Delhi over Gurgaon any day. This town makes NOIDA look like a paradise. And I am talking about the same Noida where constant supply of electricity is still a privilege. 

This city has more Beer and Wine shops than drug stores. Many addresses in Gurgaon use their nearest 'Daaru Ka Theka' as a landmark.

Also, this is the only city in India, where the administration (instead of providing security for its women) ordered all the commercial institutions to close at 8PM. So that women should not be out in the city after dark. 
TAKE THAT FEMINISM !



Now for past couple of days, there has been a specific restaurant/pub from Gurgaon that has been in news for all the wrong reasons. Though, I had never reviewed or experienced the service of the said restaurant, I can assume how it might had been for all those poor patrons. I have been exposed to horrible service from many so called elegant restaurants of this city, but it was nothing compared to what these unfortunate kids went through.

So here is the scoop; Lemp Brewpub and Kitchen, in Gurgaon is going viral these days on social media because of its bad food and worse (read: life threatening) service. I mean, where else could you expect you brunch to end at a police station, pleading to take any amount of money and just let you go?

When I first saw the post shared by one of my friends on facebook, I thought of it as just another case of a meal went bad. But this link didnt stop from popping up all over my twitter and facebook by my various friends.

So one day I decided to check it out, and to my surprise the said post (along with Blog) had been taken down. THERE WAS NOTHING TO READ.

And so I wondered, howcome a viral link ends up being a blank page, saying, "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.". The owners or anybody who made that post disappear, they should understand that by erasing that post, they just confirmed that everything mentioned there was TRUE! But this is how things work in India, we believe all the revolutions and oppositions can be squished with a heavy boot.

This is how that famous blog post looks like now!

So after I was unable to read the post on the now empty blog (lempexperience.blogspot.in), I began sniffing around the internet. 

I went through all the reviews on Zomato and other websites, but again, that post was nowhere to be seen except for here.

Now what I dont understand is this, if you read the reviews at Zomato, after painstakingly scrolling down to the very early reviews, you will find some really good reviews of the place. Also, the author of the famous post mentioned having visited the restaurant before.

My question is, what changed in that restaurant between those good reviews and that nightmarish blog post (that now has been erased) ?

I would bet my money on 'Management'. Because all the earlier good reviews (even the bad and average ones) have been replied and signed by a name that didnt appear anywhere among so many others in the blog post. So I am guessing it was the then manager who was making this place a delight for its patrons. 

I dont know why the manager was changed (or if its just my theory), but this place has turned into a ill-reputed freak house since then. Every review since the changed signature of that manager has been getting worse.

We also see the police involvement only because the owner of the restaurant knew how to throw his weight around. And its not the case just with this restaurant, its the whole city.

And there is nothing, me or any other person who visits Gurgaon in search for a decent meal or experience can do about it. Nobody is ever safe in Gurgaon.

People are complaining about this one restaurant now, while I have been whining about this whole city ever since I had started coming here. Call me a cynic or whatever suits your vocabulary, but I had never felt safe here. Especially when I witnessed the grand New Year's Eve disaster (2011) happening right in front of my eyes (my wife and her younger sister were with me then). 

Imagine having a front row seat to this freak show with your wife and a young girl.

This city is a paradox in itself; a singularity that is being haunted by an uneven distribution of resources and power, brought upon by itself. This is a perfect example of a city where the rich keep getting richer, and the underprivileged go to any length to join the big clubs. 

And cities like these cant be salvaged.
Even Batman can never save Gotham!