India, July 11 -- When Amit Shankar moved to Gurugram from Delhi's Lajpat Nagar in 2001, few imagined the city would become one of India's most recognisable urban landscapes one day.

Today, after more than two decades, Shankar no longer thinks of Gurugram as the city he moved to.

He says, "Back then, dust defined the city. Tower cranes stood where mustard fields had once flourished, roads ended abruptly, and most people treated Gurugram as a place to work before returning to Delhi each evening. Twenty-five years later, I find myself living in a city that has transformed not just physically, but emotionally as well."

Shankar was born in Allahabad, studied in Delhi and has now spent nearly half of his life in Gurugram. "At 53, having liv...