‘God must play with Lego too’, I thought to myself. Well, I’m
certainly not suggesting that a French architect-planner is God himself, but his
masterpiece in North India certainly looked like a city made of Lego building
blocks from the air. Chandigarh, perhaps India’s finest planned city, Le
Corbusier’s masterpiece and capital to two states looked alarmingly orderly. I
know it is a planned city, but it seemed so predictable – equal sections containing
structures of similar height, straight roads which met each other at perfect
right angles and plenty of green – I’m guessing just the right amount to keep the
oxygen at 20.95%. Perfect you might think – perhaps – But perfect is not always beautiful,
at least not to me.
I had to put my discovery of the city on hold though. The
primary reason for my being here took the first bite of my time, as I headed to
the dusty town of Zirakpur on the outskirts of the garden city for the wedding
of my good friend AS (Yes, the valley of flowers trip http://www.riaanrove.blogspot.in/2012/09/the-valley-of-flowers.html).
I spend the rest of day, meeting old friends, enjoying some local cuisine and
feeling like a dwarf, before I return to Chandigarh to find accommodation for
the night.
It rained for a good part of the night and I woke to a
perfect concoction of weather, sights and sounds. Spring was on the horizon. Dead
brown leaves decorated the pavements but a little higher up the bark, the
yellows were outnumbered. The greens have it! The greens have it, I say. The
sky was overcast, the ground was damp. The morning air had the last breath of autumn,
the smell of wet mud and a wiff of parathas
and chai. What a day to explore the city!
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| The end of autumn |
The open air rock show
The rock garden in Chandigarh is really the work of one man, Nek Chand Saini, who started fashioning models out of scrap in a gorge near Sukhna lake in 1957. Today it is an amazing collection of rock art amidst a dramatic setting of cascading waterfalls and reflective ponds bordered by dense foliage and arboreal delights – moss covered high walls to shape paths, roots protruding out and spreading themselves from the upper sections and the odd bird call. If not for Chand’s sculptures, it would have made a perfect setting for an Indiana Jones movie. Tuck away at least 2 hours to explore this 40 acre garden - it really is one big open air art show.
Read more at http://www.nekchand.com/visit
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| Walk in the forest |
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| Waterfall in the rock gardens |
A French connection
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| Children pose for a snap at the open hand |
The ‘open hand’, another gift of Le Corbusier is apparently
the emblem of the city. The funny part though is that nobody really knows where
it is. After directions from several people including some police officers, I
find myself at Sukhna lake only to realize that I’m at the wrong end of the road.
But finally, about 20 mins later, I am moving past some tight security towards
the site. The open hand is in the main capitol complex near the high court and
is one dreary sight! Not to take anything away from the Frenchman – it is an
amazing structure. It stands a good three storey high, sits in another one of
Chandigarh’s gardens and turns majestically with the wind – yes, it functions
as a wind vane! Unfortunately, there is nobody to marvel at her beauty and I mean
nobody, save the few kids playing cricket in the pit at her base. I expected to
see a fair crowd (It was a Sunday!) busy clicking away, getting their portraits
at the symbol of their beloved city. None of that here, none of that anywhere
for that matter – Chandigarh, for an Indian city is really quite empty. Well,
either that or nobody gets out. The hand just stands there begging for
attention.
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| At the architecture museum |
To understand the history and foundations of Chandigarh, I head
to the museum complex in Sector 10. Another one of Le Corbusier’s creations,
the complex houses museums of the evolution of life, an art gallery and most
notably, the museum of the architecture of Chandigarh. Even if you aren’t really
into architecture, expect the museum to impress you. I was certainly quite in
awe – partly because of the elaborate plans of the city that her founders drew
up, partly because of the new facts I uncovered. With the partition as a trigger
for ideation, inspiration of a garden city from Europe and a battery of
architects on a quest for glory (and not money), the story of Chandigarh is
right out of a National Geographic documentary with twists and turns, targets
and misses , with it all coming together at the end. And while, Mr. C takes
most of the credit on this one, he just added the finishing touches as I found
out. The first plans for the city were drawn up by American architects Albert
Mayer and Matthew Nowicki, and guess what – while their plans also outlined
independent and self sufficient sectors, they intended to make it a real garden
city with non-linear roads to add to the beauty. Like I said, perfection isn’t always
beautiful! Nowicki’s death however, made way for a new set of Architects with
Corbusier at the lead, to redesign the city according to his ‘body and spirit’
principle.
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| Buddha's foot (the one above) |
Out of sheer curiosity, I made a quick pit stop at the Government
museum and art gallery, 50 m away from the architecture museum. It had the
usual, some local fabrics, pots, idols. But the section on Gandhara was
something I wasn’t prepared for – 627 relics, primarily Buddhist statues from
the ancient kingdom of Gandhara which existed about 2000 years ago in the
region of Punjab. It had everything you would expect to see in perhaps a more ‘Tibetan’
museum including Buddha’s foot. Most of the Buddha statues I have seen in India
are perched comfortably at nothing less than 6,000 ft. Never did I expect to find
these relics in the fertile plains of the five rivers – talk about
predictability!
TIPS
- Visit the rock garden at 9am sharp, when it opens. It can get quite crowded as the day continues
- The Government museum and art gallery has a souvenir section on the ground floor which opens after 2pm. Looking at the prices, I’m pretty sure though that they aren’t original.
