The Convergys call centre, off NH8, is one of many buildings in Gurgaon that lay claim to a vision of modernity through their architecture. At 1 in the morning, it is a pyramid of white light shooting up into the sky, glimpses of the people working inside visible through its transparent body. At its foot is the undergrowth of old India, a cluster of shacks that make up Convergys dhaba, where truck drivers stop by for meals and where 23-year-old Sabby Bakshi, a team leader at Convergys, has stepped out for a half-hour break.

Gurgaon’s high-rises tower over many such eateries that come alive at night. Across the highway, on the lane next to the GenPac office, is another row of food joints, juice stalls and teashops that keep time with their clients’ nocturnal hours.

The nightlife here is bookended by the demands of work. Some step out to grab street food from carts selling egg rolls and chhole-kulcha. While others, like Jaspreet and Yogeesh Ghuliani, have a leisurely dinner of chicken fried rice and buttery aloo parantha on the greasy tables set out on the road, before returning to work. “In the eight years ‘ve been working for GE, I have been on the morning shift once,” says Ghuliani. “So ‘s food is something I have almost every day,” he says, pointing to the stall and its owner from Bengal.

Like Ghuliani, many have grown accustomed to a life that their parents would not have dreamed of. A country that awoke to freedom at the midnight hour was never really a creature of the night. Our parents awoke to the strains of Akashvani in the morning and slept at 10, without fuss. But between 1993 and 1994, when the first call centre was set up in India, and the initial years of the new millennium, metropolitan India’s body clock found a new rhythm. Every night, thousands of fresh-out-of-college youngsters turned from Raj to Roger and Uma to Amy and stayed up till dawn in air-conditioned offices to sell insurance or credit cards to Americans.

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