It Takes a Villa

The developers behind Central Park, one of India's most expensive new gated communities, were elegantly lyrical in their promises of the luxurious existence awaiting new residents.

'When you buy into Central Park you are not doing something as mundane as buying a flat, you are buying into a lifestyle,' the brochure read. The development would offer an escape from the dust, heat and pollution of Delhi, shutting out the bleaker realities of modern India, the slums and the squalor, with an unbreachable security system. The residents' children would even breathe cleaner air than their counterparts outside the gates.

Across India, developers are advertising similarly extravagant, fenced-off refuges from the poverty and chaos that still blight everyday urban life here.

Attracted by the booming economy, thousands of expatriate Indians have returned to take up high-paid jobs at home. After years in Silicon Valley or in European capitals, they are no longer willing to tolerate the routine power cuts and water shortages which most citizens endure without complaint. Instead, they buy homes in American-styled developments (with names such as Malibu Town and Flamingo Heights) that offer on-site power generators and water plants.

Frustrated by the failure of urban India to keep pace with the modern economy, these residents are seething at their inability to shut out the daily irritants of existence. Most had hoped that they would never have to leave the complex, except to travel in chauffeured cars to work.

Beyond the confines of the development, women carry piles of bricks in baskets on their heads while malnourished, semi-clothed children bang on car windscreens. Slum dwellings constructed of patched-up plastic sheeting are dotted by the roadside.

'The idea of these gated communities is to create a cocoon. Everyone understands that there are things outside that you don't want to expose your children to. The idea is to have the area sealed and sanitised. The apartment costs are huge, but it's worth it to protect yourself from the violence and crime outside,' says Rajesh Jadhav, an IT businessman.

-----Ahhh, modern "democracy" and the "free market" at its finest.