You can’t really quarrel with the poet Zauq. Who the heck is going to leave the streets of Delhi, he wrote with some passion in a much quoted poem in Urdu, when apparently offered a post in the Deccan.

Zauq didn’t live to see Delhi after the Commonwealth Games — in fact, he died in 1854. It’s even more difficult today to leave the city where new flyovers take you from one part of the town to another in the blink of an eye, where opportunities are gold-lined, and lifestyle is branded. Who, indeed, is going to leave Delhi? Or, for that matter, Mumbai or Bangalore?

India, contrary to popular belief, does not live in its villages. It does not live in its small towns either, notwithstanding the rosy outlook of an expanding middle India that market researchers gush over. It lives in its big cities and has no intention of moving anywhere smaller, thank you.

Talent, many regret, is restricted to the big metros. Efforts to draw what can be described as trophy professionals into smaller regions are not always successful, mainly because the big metros offer opportunities that few cities, let alone small towns, can provide. “I have got many offers to work in Bhojpuri movies back home in Bihar,” says actor Manoj Bajpai. “But I like Bollywood and want to stick to it.”

A few don’t have a choice. Bureaucrats are routinely transferred in the course of their careers. The junior rung in the private sector too is being introduced to small towns. Fresh management executives in Hindustan Unilever, for instance, are posted to Hardwar before they move to Delhi.

But for India’s top seed — in fields such as academics, journalism, the arts and the private sector — life is in the metros of their choice.

They have good reason, too, for not wanting to move once they’ve arrived. For some, it’s not just a question of opportunities, but old links that tie them to their place of work. “I am really very attached to my city and the institution I work for,” stresses Upinder Singh, professor in the department of history, Delhi University. “I would even refuse to go to Harvard or Oxford,” says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s eldest daughter.

It’s not easy to uproot yourself from a city where you have spread your professional roots. “While I do travel to small towns on work, I’d always love to keep Delhi as my base,” says Nalini Singh, managing editor, TV Live India Pvt. Ltd.

Likewise, opportunity is the reason people make Mumbai their home. “I came from Bihar to fulfil my dreams in Mumbai,” says Bajpai. “I have got love, work and fame from this city.” Composer Pritam seconds that. “Music is my passion and it is in Mumbai that I have got so many opportunities to work. I love my hometown Calcutta, but Mumbai is where dreams become a reality.”

In most cases, it’s the lure of work that decides for people where they are going to be. Sometimes, of course, the job on offer leaves you cold, even if it’s a promising career move. Historian Ramachandra Guha, for one, stresses that his decisions are not dictated by the location of a job, but the work itself. The Bangalore-based writer is averse to taking on an administrative post — such as that of a vice-chancellor — because of the nature of the work. “I’d make a lousy administrator,” he says.

Some, however, feel perturbed about the divide between big and small. “I am very disturbed about the growing ghettoisation created by the upper class which prefers to live in the cities and generate opportunities for its own people,” says the editorial director of New Indian Express, Prabhu Chawla. “I have been working in India, but I belong to Bharat.”

Once, nation building was a slogan, and people willingly moved across the country to realise the Nehruvian dream of a strong nation. Then the cities grew, marking out their own areas of influence — art in Calcutta, power in Delhi, finance in Mumbai and, subsequently, technology in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The government wanted to develop underdeveloped areas in the country, the reason it launched a backward area development policy some years ago, giving industrialists setting up factories in remote regions financial and other incentives. “But companies couldn’t even hire senior executives or engineers,” rues D.H. Pai Panandikar, advisor, RPG Foundation, and former secretary general, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry. “They couldn’t take their families because there were no schools or hospitals.” Power, roads, railways, getting skilled and unskilled labour — all posed problems, he points out. “The advantage given by the concessions got more than eroded by the burden of additional costs.” The government gave up its backward area policy.

Maruti Suzuki chairman R.C. Bhargava recounts that the Uttar Pradesh government once wanted to set up a tractor plant in Pratapgarh, but couldn’t get people to move there. “Ultimately it had to be closed down.”

One has to “solve the problems that make a city unappealing,” argues lyricist Javed Akhtar, who grew up in small towns but prefers to live in Mumbai. Towns, he adds, don’t gain higher visibility because a celebrity takes up a job there. “Meaningful visibility comes from better civic infrastructure, tourism and economic prosperity.”

What’s clear is that the focus today is on a viable working environment. “I have to be in a place where I can continue to do the kind of work I do,” says filmmaker Shyam Benegal. “Apart from Mumbai, I can work in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.”

Any move, most professionals stress, would depend on not just the nature of the job but what the place has to offer in terms of schools and colleges, hospitals and social activities. For couples where both partners work, the spouse’s career would also need to be considered.

“Right now, I would move to Timbuktu,” says D.R. Ganesh Natarajan, the Pune-based global CEO of Zensar Technologies and former chairman of Nasscom. The CEO, while stressing that the question is hypothetical, says he can move only if his wife, a successful entrepreneur, finds something suitable too. “I grew up in a village near Ranchi; so I’m used to small towns. But someone who grew up in Bangalore or Mumbai may find the shift difficult in terms of social circles,” he says.

But some people — and in top positions too — are moving to smaller cities. “It depends chiefly on the kind of opportunities a successful professional is provided with,” explains ABC Consultants chairman Bish Agrawal.

Swaraj Krishnan, who left Bajaj Allianz General Insurance in Pune last year to join Magma HDI General Insurance in Calcutta as its CEO, says when he was offered the job he took it up as a “challenge”. The decision to move to a place, he adds, usually hinges on the “economic activities or prosperity” of the area. “Unfortunately, there is a negative perception about Calcutta and not many are willing to come here,” he says.

Among historians, Irfan Habib, despite a tenure in Delhi as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, says he doesn’t like living in big cities. “I would always prefer to live in a small town,” emphasises Habib, Professor Emeritus, Aligarh Muslim University.

But there are, of course, ways and ways of making people move. More money is one obvious solution. Sanjay Muthal, managing director, Nugrid Consulting, also proposes encouraging “fast-track talent” in rural stints. “Those working there should be promoted faster versus the rest. Companies can also provide benefits that are aspirational in metros, such as housing,” he says.

Historian Singh adds, “To make institutions in small towns more attractive, more avenues of research should be provided to academics.”

With a bit of boost, small towns can soon be sniffy about big hamlets. Remember how Mumbai once thought Delhi was a village?