After partition in 1947, the former capital of Punjab, Lahore, became a part of Pakistan.  This meant that Punjab in India needed a new capital. The government decided that none of the existing cities were suitable.  So, the first prime minister of India, Jawarhal Nehru decided to have a new city built to represent the new modern spirit of India.  Initially, he commissioned two Americans to design it, Mayer and Nowicki, but when one was killed in a plane crash, he was forced to find a new architect/city planner.  He chose Le Corbusier, who is responsible for most of the grid design of the city of Chandigarh today as well as the concrete architecture of its major buildings.

The site chosen for the city was a plot of mostly flat land about 200 km from Delhi.  In the area were a few small villages which had to be cleared.  During the destruction of these villages, many household items were destroyed and hauled away.  An enterprising road inspector, Nek Chand, began taking these discarded ceramics, light sockets, bangles, etc. and using them to build art in an empty plot of land near the government buildings.  He worked on his project for years and years without anyone discovering it.  When it finally was discovered, the city realized that he had built something extraordinary.  They gave him laborers and money to continue his masterpiece and today his “fantasy rock garden” is the second most visited attraction in India behind the Taj Mahal.

It is quite a fascinating sight.  It’s all carved into rocks, so that I navigated through canyons and caves with waterfalls and rivers around me.  Tiny fantasy villages sat on rock ledges above my head.  Hundreds of humanoid statues made of discarded bangles or broken plates looked down on me at each turn.  It really does seem like a whole fantasy world.  Check out the pictures to see some examples.

Chandigarh is a city of sectors.  These are small, self sufficient rectangular grids which are meant to make up a community block.  The city is split into slightly less than one hundred.  When I had to go somewhere, the first thing I looked for was which sector it was in.  In between sectors are large tree lined roads and at the corner of each sector is a roundabout for an intersection.  Chandigarh is the cleanest and greenest city in India, largely because of this planned nature and all the land given over to public space and greenery.  It also has the highest per capita income of any city in India.  And as some land-owning cousins I met on the bus told me as they showed me around the city, property is quite expensive in the best sectors, often comparable to major American cities.

Still, I didn’t find it to be all that beautiful.   The supreme court and government buildings designed by Le Corbusier are just big concrete monstrosities in my eyes.  They are the sort of thing that would have seemed modern and cutting edge in the 50s, but that style of building just did not age well.  The green open spaces could be beautiful if they were landscaped, but they’ve mostly been allowed to grow wild.  The famous open hand sculpture which is the symbol of Chandigarh sits forlorn in a weed filled grassy area covered in rust and looks like nothing so much as a piece of forgotten and abandoned playground equipment.

The center of Chandigarh is the commercial square in sector 17.  Although meant to be a great open space for shopping, it’s populated by the same kind of mismatched and chaotic stores that can be found all over India.  Storefronts clash, collide and compete with each other.  Wires and signs hang from windows and stores and really bring no sense of order to the area.  To me, it is subject to the same chaos as the rest of India and I find it more depressing than inspiring.  The great plans seem to have succumbed to the overcrowding and poverty that is present all over India.  This was a general feeling I had for Chandigarh as a city.  Property is expensive, the streets are more orderly, there is a lot more greenery, but in the end it was a typical Indian city.