I was chatting with a local friend and she told me that normally what happens is if there is any work in an area - construction, road making, labour - these villages will be built near the work site and then as soon as the work is complete they move on. They are usually paid on a daily basis and don't have any permanent residence. Their average salaries are 50 to 200 rupees/day (one to four Canadian dollars) and they don't have work all year round.
The tent village in Gurgaon, close to our high-end abode, was recently removed. Hundreds of these tent homes on a vacant plot of land - one day it was there and the next day it was gone... They may have been moved because of a land purchase or new development.
The municipality has managed to clear the cows out of our neighbourhood too. Both of these losses in Gurgaon were sad events for me. The first because of the lives impacted, the second because I find the chaos of the cattle in the traffic so humorous and picturesque.
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Our crew are usually prepared with food for the people that approach our car at busy intersections. They do take our offerings but are relentless in their request for rupees until the traffic shifts and our driver rolls us away.
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