It’s 3 AM, and a tall Ernst & Young building towers over us. My friend tells me that the next one over is an outsourced call center for another tech company. We sit in plastic chairs at a dusty roadside dhaba, as kids who should be sleeping take our orders. Stuffed parathas, aachar, and chai.

By day, the city of Gurgaon is like a distant Indian cousin to one of Highway 101’s Southbay cities. The Southbay is some 45 minutes south of San Francisco, and it is home to the shiny buildings that are monuments to the Silicon Valley economy. The “knowledge workers” moved to these cities — Santa Clara, Redwood City, etc — for the jobs. And the builders of these towns frequently poured asphalt and laid foundations with only the shiny buildings in mind. Later came the thoughts of culture, sprawl, and livability.

Gurgaon is no different. As you scan the flat, dusty lands, you can see the city climbing towards the skies, one glass building at a time. And you can also see the bright new housing colonies popping up too. Like the distance between the Southbay and San Francisco, Gurgaon is a 45 minute drive from Delhi. It is home to call centers, management consulting firms, and all the shiny new jobs that make up the shiny new India.

Much like Silicon Valley in its younger days, Gurgaon appears to be growing without answers to the questions that will only be asked later. Two activists used India’s new Right to Information (RTI) Act to find out about Gurgaon’s public transportation plans. (India’s RTI Act is in the same class of laws as the U.S. Freedom of Information Act — only much, much stronger.) The activists’ efforts were covered in the Indian magazine, Civil Society.

They wanted to see all the city documents regarding public transportation plans. And under the RTI Act, they were entitled to get what they asked for. Only problem was, there weren’t any documents. The city hadn’t done any planning on public transportation needs.

And so all the people who serve the knowledge workers — maids, cooks, laborers, etc — seem left out of the equation. My friend and other peers of mine who are part of the Gurgaon economy are kind enough to give me a ride in their cars. I can afford the occasional 800 to 1000 rupees ($20 to $25) to go there and back via taxi. But for a maid, that kind of money might be half her earnings for the month.

I did see a Delhi bus taking lower income riders between the two cities. But within Gurgaon itself, it didn’t seem like there were many options. India Shining is a wonderful thing, but city planners need to peer into the economy’s shadows as well.