Chandigarh: The only planned city in India

I was in Chandigarh for last two days to attend a friend's wedding (who was visiting from Seattle). The whole experience was very interesting and enriching. For one, Chandigarh is the only planned city in India. And, believe me it was visible in the wonderfully laid out six lane city roads and complete absence of skyscrapers. The traffic, on Chandigarh's streets, is easily negotiable and I can bet running/walking on the roads early morning would be a wonderful experience. Further, the way the different sectors are laid out makes it extremely easy for any new visitor to figure out the directions.

The planned nature of the city has also in some sense provided civic sense to the citizens of the city. Lane driving was strictly being followed and the rowdism (a common trait of travel in Delhi) was unbelievably absent from the lovely streets of Chandigarh. Most of the city seems to be inhabitated by the so-called elites of the urban society. An interesting question to answer would be if the wonderful beauty of the city is because of the elites or the elites are present there because of the planned city. Anyways, I would pose this question to the audience of this blog?

Further, we (Mausam and I) did some sight seeing as well. We went to the High Court of Punjab (an architectural wonder), the Nek Chand Rock garden and a play school in Chandigarh. We actually sat through a hearing in the High court, which was very intriguing and broke so many stereotypes that many of us would have had of Indian courts (thanks to the pervasive Bollywood). The high court experience warrants a separate blog entry and so does the session in Classical music that Mausam gave to me.

However, I do want to talk about the Nek Chand Rock garden. It was an incredible piece of art, creativity and love for the enviornment for an unknown Roads Inspector of Chandigarh city (Nek Chand).

To do justice to his works, I would start wiuth a quotation that Mr. M.N.Sharma, the former chief architect of Chandigarh had to say, "Nek Chand's architectural and engineering innovations have touch of Antonio Gaudi". Since, I visited Barcelona recently, I cannot agree more with this statement.

You can find out more about Nek Chand's rock garden over here.