Finding Your People in Gurgaon

 In a city full of people chasing something, the best thing you can find is someone who makes the chase feel a little less lonely.

Walk into any college cafeteria or office building in Gurgaon and you’ll hear it: someone arguing that their hometown has the best street food, someone else explaining a festival to a friend who’s never heard of it, three different languages at one table. Everyone here came from somewhere else. Some came for college, some for a job, some just for a shot at a different life. And somewhere in the middle of all that, friendships start happening.

It doesn’t feel easy at the start, though.

For some people, moving here is the first taste of independence. For others, it’s the first time living away from family, and it hits harder than they expected. Some of us already knowing a couple of people. Others walk into a new classroom and just hope someone talks to them. In the beginning, all the differences feel loud. You wonder if you’ll fit in, if anyone will get your jokes, if there’s even one person here who likes the same things you do.

For me, the answer came during a college icebreaker session, the kind of activity everyone pretends to be thrilled about. I wasn’t expecting much. But somewhere between the awkward introductions, we started talking about songs, and we just didn’t stop. It was random and completely unplanned, and it turned into the friendship I’m most grateful for here.

That’s the thing: you don’t need the same story as someone to end up in theirs. Sometimes it’s just one conversation that runs longer than either of you planned.

Honestly, nobody has figured out how friendship works. The person you wrote off as “not my type of people” can turn into your ride or die. It can start with a song, or with complaining about the mess food. Small stuff like that makes a new city a lot more fun, and a lot easier to live in.

Even deciding where to meet becomes part of the friendship. Café or mall? Which food place? Who’s too far, and is anyone actually willing to travel that long in Gurgaon traffic? It sounds boring, but those little negotiations turn into memories, and the memories slowly turn strangers into familiar faces.

Your closest friend doesn’t have to be from your city or your school. They might have grown up on the other side of the country. It’s strange to look back and realise that someone who wasn’t in your life a year ago is now the person you can’t imagine getting through the week without. I owe Gurgaon for that. It gave me my survival kit.

Of course, it isn’t all smooth. People have different opinions, habits, boundaries, and expectations, and there will be misunderstandings and days when you just can’t see eye to eye. But being close to someone doesn’t mean agreeing on everything. It means respecting them even when you see things differently.

College, work, convenience, or plain circumstance might be what puts us in the same city. What keeps us together is the shared experiences, the understanding, and the jokes that still make you laugh months later. Finding good friends is a bit like finding yourself, because you’re really looking for the people you don’t have to pretend around.

In a city full of different stories, the best thing I found here wasn’t a new place or a new opportunity.

It was the people who made me glad I came.

-Dhiya