Scooting Worldwide: Chandigarh, India

Chandigarh is an anomaly among Indian cities: it was planned. Le Corbusier created the design for the city. And the result feels distinctly... MODERN... And accessible.

I had visited another "designed" city, Brasilia Brazil. Brazilia is the capital of Brazil and is intended to be impressive at all costs--including the population of the city. The streets are very broad, the architecture grandiose, the blocks enormous, the arrangement fairly inconvenient. Brasilia felt impressive but not very livable.

In comparison, Chandigarh feels very livable. Everything has been scaled down in both ambition and desire to awe. It is more functional and less ostentatious. The architecture is modern and beautiful, the streets orderly and straight, the design consistent and inviting. There are public spaces including MANY parks with large grassy spaces... I have seen so many people out enjoying the public grounds here--life here seems to be a much higher quality than all the other cities I have visited in India.

These are the row homes in Chandigarh. They are three stories, all with unique detail on the balconies, the window surrounds, the color schemes, etc. (Chandigarh, India)

Chandigarh is generally a middle and high-class city. Some of the residences are quite swank (Chandigarh, India)

I love the modern public art! This is in the sculpture garden, behind the Chandigarh Museum (Chandigarh, India)

One of the public spaces is a bougainvillea garden. I LOVE Bougainvillea! (Bougainvillea Garden, Chandigarh, India)

The High Court building. (Chandigarh, India)

Le Corbusier's famous "Open Hand" sculpture on the civic square... "Open to give, open to receive". (Chandigarh, India)

The view from the monolithic Secretariat building. This is one of the ornaments on the top of the building (Secretariat Building, Chandigarh, India)

HANDS DOWN my absolute FAVORITE thing about Chandigarh is the Nek Chand Rock Garden. Without funding or approval, Nek Chand (a Pakistani immigrant after partition) started building sculptures out of discarded materials. Today, the Nek Chand Rock Garden is the 2nd most visited site in India, second only to the Taj Mahal.

Like the city it is in, the Rock Garden is very human, very accessible. It is noncommercial (funded by the government), and admission is 10Rs (27 cents)... And it is just SO WONDERFUL!

You wend your way through curved walls, under tiny arches, where rocks have been placed in creative and interesting ways to guide you, beyond stacks of discarded clay pots, all the while surrounded by beautiful desert and tropical foliage. In the sweltering heat of the day, you sweat your way through--amazed as each vision is revealed--until finally, you come around the bend to find an enormous waterfall!

And part of the delight is not just the satisfaction of finally seeing the waterfall that you heard a minute prior, but to see the joy on the children's faces as they play uninhibited, frolicking in the waters.

At the end of the windy road through visages large, small--magical all--is a large plaza with an amphitheater, and a long windy row of arches, inside of each is a swing. There are probably 50 swings all together, and it feels so good to have the rush of wind as you soar inside this fantasy that is the creation of one man.

In the US we have amusement parks with "designed" and "marketed" impressiveness--formulaic. This Rock Garden is a magical place of creativity, unspoiled by marketers--pure in intent. There are no marketing tie-ins. You cannot buy Mickey-Mouse ears to wear or pay $5 for an order of french fries because you aren't allowed to bring food into the park. This is not a place driven by a profit motive. It is art. Meant only to inspire, to surprise, to delight.

This is a place for kids, a place for families, a place to be inspired. The Nek Chand Rock Garden is absolutely one of the highlights of my trip so far. The Taj Mahal is an intentionally ostentatious, and hence (to me) somewhat "contaminated" monument... It wasn't enough for the Shah to honor his widow in his daily life, he wanted everyone ELSE to know...

Nek Chand worked for 15 years in obscurity in the middle of the jungle--unknown to everyone--on his personal project. He was not working to impress anyone, he was only recycling junk.

And so the result is very different from the Taj, and to me, far more appealing.