I shifted to Indore on 26th October. The kind of shift that looks clean on a calendar but feels messy in the body. New city, new routines, new routes, and that slightly stubborn part of your mind that keeps whispering, “We have done bigger things. Why does this feel so unfamiliar?”
For the first few days, I lived out of the Marriott in Vijay Nagar. Which is a polite way of saying I was temporarily homeless with good pillows and a dangerously efficient breakfast buffet. I told myself it was a soft landing. In reality, it was a holding pattern. The city was beginning, but my life had not yet arrived.
Two months later, I am still new, but I am no longer a stranger. I have a home in Shree Nagar Extension, Old Palacia. I have a daily commute. I have favourite food spots I pretend I discovered accidentally, like all serious food people do. I have opinions about scooters, helmets, and the way Indore can be both calm and chaotic without seeming stressed about either.
Most importantly, I have started collecting small moments, the ones you do not see on Google Maps. The ones that make a city feel like it is slowly taking you in.
This is not a guide. It is an honest, affectionate, slightly comedic record of learning Indore and missing Gurgaon at the same time. Because that is what moving does. It gives you new love, but it does not erase old comfort.
The Marriott phase, or when your address is a lobby.
There is a specific kind of loneliness in hotel living. Everything works, but nothing belongs to you. You have all the comforts, but none of the familiarity. Your suitcase becomes your wardrobe, your desk becomes your dining table, and the lobby starts to feel like your living room. Yet Vijay Nagar gave me a first impression that felt… manageable. The city did not come at me aggressively. It did not try to prove itself in the first ten minutes. It simply existed, confident and functional, like someone who does not need to talk loudly to be noticed.
That first night I looked out and did what I always do, tried to understand the system. How does this city move? What is the pace? Where is the friction? Where is the ease?
Indore did not reveal everything quickly. It just let me breathe.
And I realised something early: this is a city with a softer nervous system.
Air, distance, and the small luxury of not planning life around traffic
If Gurgaon teaches you to check AQI the way you check your calendar, Indore lets you breathe without turning it into a daily negotiation. I am not saying it is perfect air. I am saying it is less punishing. My lungs stopped filing daily complaints. Then there is distance. Gurgaon distances are not measured in kilometres. They are measured in emotional effort. You do not ask, “How far is it?” You ask, “Is it worth the drive?” because the drive is never just a drive. It is a decision with consequences.
Indore is different. You can step out for something small and return without feeling like you have sacrificed your entire evening. That does not only save time. It saves mood. It makes you more willing to explore and say yes.
Indore gives you back time, and time is the most underpriced luxury in adult life.
Scooters everywhere, helmets nowhere, and a city that runs on improvisation. Indore runs on two-wheelers the way organisations run on unspoken processes. Constantly, efficiently, and with slightly questionable governance. Scooters dot the city. They appear everywhere. At all times. Carrying all combinations of human beings and cargo. A family of three is normal. A bag of groceries is expected. A large item that probably deserves its own vehicle is treated as “manageable”.
And helmets? Helmets are treated like optional accessories, the way some people treat fitness plans. Everyone agrees it is a good idea. Almost nobody practises it consistently.
Gurgaon traffic often feels like a competitive sport. Indore traffic feels like a community performance. There is chaos, but it is not rage-filled chaos. It is optimism with horns. People negotiate space with confidence, eye contact, and a shared belief that the other person will somehow understand the plan.
Oddly, it works more often than it should.
Indore, a city where you do not need your car, and that changes how you live. One of the biggest surprises has been how unnecessary the need for a car feels here. It is the rare Indian city where you can live properly without being dependent on four wheels. Distances are shorter. Options are plenty. Movement is easier.
That changes you. You stop bracing yourself. You become spontaneous again. You stop treating outings like logistics and start treating them like life. In Gurgaon, the car becomes part of your identity. In Indore, it becomes optional. That is freedom disguised as convenience.
The home hunt, or how I became a part-time real estate agent
Now for the part that tested my patience and my negotiation skills: finding a home.
I found a place in Shree Nagar Extension, Old Palacia within seven days. But let me be honest: it was not “seven days” in the relaxed sense. It was seven days in the “I have meetings, lots to take in, and a suitcase to unpack, so this will happen now” sense.
For six straight days, I role-played as a real estate agent. I learned the vocabulary (Multi, anything with more than 2 floors) quickly. I learned that “spacious” means different things depending on how optimistic the broker is. I learned that “nearby” is a flexible term. I learned that good photographs are responsible for at least 60% of modern disappointment.
Rentals are not cheap, and the price-performance ratio is not always inspiring. You pay a premium number and then you find yourself asking, quietly, “Where did my money go?” It is like paying flagship pricing and receiving mid-range finishing.
Still, I found the place, and the moment I walked in, I felt that quiet internal click. Not fireworks. Just anchoring. When you move cities, you realise your home is not just where you sleep. It is where your nervous system stops scanning.
Indore people like to talk, and that is a gift I did not know I needed
Now the best part, and the part that has made me feel most welcome.
People in Indore like to talk.
Not in the superficial way, but in the human way. Conversations feel easy. Warm. Available. There is less sharpness in daily interactions. People are curious in a gentle way, and they have time.
Every day on my way to work and on the way back, I chat with Uber drivers. It has become a ritual. I ask one question, almost like an informal survey I have been running twice a day for the last number of days:
“Should I buy a home here?”
And then I listen.
Every driver has reasons. Detailed reasons. Emotional reasons. Practical reasons. Indore reasons. They do not just answer. They build a case. It is almost as if the city has collectively decided that my next logical step is property ownership and they are all politely involved in the decision.
One tells me about how the city is growing. One tells me about how peaceful it is. One tells me about how “everything is nearby” with the confidence of a man who has never had to cross Gurgaon in peak traffic. One tells me about schools, localities, investment potential, and future infrastructure as if he is also my financial advisor.
Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I genuinely consider it. And sometimes I realise the real value is not the advice. It is the conversation. A city where strangers talk to you like you are a neighbour, not a transaction, does something subtle to the heart.
The great “Ji” adjustment, and how respect is baked into daily language here. One serious adjustment has been the language of respect.
Indore is a “Ji” city.
People call everyone “Ji” with such natural ease that at first I felt slightly old. Then I felt slightly confused. Then I went through a phase of “Why Ji?” And now I am trying to remember to add “Ji” after every name because it feels… right. Here, I am not just Lav Kush. I am Lav Kush Ji. Sometimes I am “Maharaj Ji”, which is both funny and mildly unsettling the first time you hear it, because you immediately wonder what responsibilities come with the title.
In Gurgaon, respect often shows up in efficiency. In Indore, respect shows up in language. It is cultured. It is habitual. It is woven into the way people speak to each other.
And here is the strange part: I am not sure why I now do it too. Maybe it is adaptation. Maybe it is affection. Maybe it is simply what happens when you live in a place where basic courtesy is not a performance, it is the default.
Culture is not just festivals and food. Culture is also what your tongue learns to say without thinking.
Food, or how I became sev with a person attached to it
Indore does not merely do food well. Indore is emotionally invested in food. Poha is not breakfast here. It is a daily affirmation. Simple, clever, comforting, and far more satisfying than it has any right to be.
Chappan Dukan is where self-control goes to retire. Sarafa at night is where sleep becomes optional and hunger becomes a community activity. You go thinking you will just walk around, and you return having eaten enough to qualify as a small-scale inventory build.
And sev. Sev is not an ingredient. It is a personality.
If you cut me, you will find Indori sev and possibly a small amount of smug satisfaction.
Gurgaon has brilliant food too, but Gurgaon food often feels curated. Indore food feels lived. It feels like the city eats together.
New money, loud brands, and my unsolicited advice on what to do with success.
Indore is clearly upgrading, and you can feel it.
There is new money energy here, very visible, very confident. It looks like a lot of money suddenly found its way into the city and people are still deciding what to do with it. There are shiny cars, loud logos, premium everything, and a certain aesthetic of “I have arrived” even when the destination is still being figured out.
I say this with affection. This is what growth looks like in its early chapters.
My advice to anyone confused about what to do with new money is simple.
Do not buy loud brands to prove you have arrived.
Come to DP Abhushan. Buy gold. Buy diamonds. Stud yourself properly. We have awesome silver too. Logos fade. Gold stays. Diamonds are forever, and silver, when done well, signals taste, not noise.
Three business trips, and the contrast that has defined my last two months
In the middle of settling in, I took three business trips, and they became a strange emotional framework for these two months. Ratlam, a small town deep in Madhya Pradesh, reminded me how grounded life can be when it is not constantly performing. It has a certain honesty. A different rhythm. A different definition of “important”. Udaipur felt like beauty with manners. The kind of place that makes you slow down, speak softer, and question your life choices in a tasteful way.
Mumbai, my old friend, was the opposite. Mumbai is motion. It is ambition at full speed. It does not apologise, it does not wait, it just moves and expects you to adapt.
Ratlam and Mumbai are extremes. One is rooted. One is relentless.
Indore sits in the middle, and increasingly, it feels like a rare balance. Ambitious, but not exhausting. Growing, but still liveable.
I miss Gurgaon, not because it is perfect, but because it is unmistakable. Gurgaon is rude, relentlessly fast, shiny, expensive, and permanently in a hurry. It can make you feel like you are late even when you are early. It can drain you and still somehow convince you that you are lucky to be there.
And yet, it has a sense of humour. A swagger. A kind of unbothered confidence that does not ask for validation, it simply assumes it. Yes, the air is terrible, but it is the sort of air that seems to whisper, “I might shorten your life, but I will give you stories that make it feel longer.” Immortality is overrated anyway. You want a life that feels lived.
What I miss most is not the skyline or the speed. It is the comfort of my home and my family there, the easy familiarity of routines that you do not appreciate until you lose them. It is also the friends. In Gurgaon, friendship is woven into the week. Here, I am still building that circle, and some evenings feel quieter than I expected.
I miss having my corner too, that one place you can walk into without planning. For me, it was Taj City Centre in Sector 44. Not for big occasions, just for the small ones. The ability to drop in for tea, slip into the spa, use the gym, sit for a bit, exchange familiar chit chat, and leave feeling slightly more put together than when you arrived. It was comfort you did not have to book in advance.
And places like 32nd Avenue. Not because they are flashy, but because they become part of your rhythm. You go there when you need to feel normal, when you need a familiar backdrop for your thoughts.
I have tried to find that equivalent in Indore. I have looked for it in the Marriott, the Radisson, and the Sayaji. I have found good service and real competence. But I have not found that “this is my place” feeling yet. Not a corner that knows me, not a space that feels like a quiet extension of my routine. Maybe it is not about hotels at all. Maybe it is about time, repetition, and the comfort that comes from being known. Cities do not replace each other. They add themselves to you, one layer at a time. Indore is giving me new layers. Gurgaon still holds a few that I am not ready to put down.
The quiet conclusion: Indore has welcomed me, and I am learning to belong
Two months is not long enough to claim expertise about a city. But it is long enough to know when a place is good for you.
Indore has reduced resistance in my daily life. It has made movement easier. It has made people feel closer. It has fed me like it is personally responsible for my happiness. It has given me conversations, respect in language, and a rhythm that feels kinder.
Gurgaon shaped my pace. Indore is shaping my breath.
I still miss Gurgaon. I probably always will. But I am also grateful for Indore, because it is teaching me something important: you can build a full life without constantly running.
And if you ever meet me here, you will know I have truly settled in when I call you “Ji” without thinking, recommend a snack with unreasonable confidence, and insist that you buy your gold and diamonds from DP Abhushan because that, my friend, is how you do new money correctly.
Also, please wear a helmet.
Indore may forgive you. Your family will not.