Chandigarh: Archi-pilgrims

After taking it slow(er) in Delhi for a day, we were scheduled to make one last overnight stay in the Punjab captial city of Chandigarh, about five hours north of Delhi by train. Chandigarh is a name known to every architecture student, as the city was designed by Le Corbusier, one of the giants of 20th century architecture. “Corbu” as we called him in college, was invited to design a new capital for the Punjabi state, along with the primary government buildings. He made the most of having such a huge blank canvas, and the result is a town and architecture unlike any other in India. The biggest miracle is that it was all built!
 
We three architects had to go and make our pilgrimage. But travel fatigue had us changing our plan to stay overnight, and we made it a day trip instead. So yet another morning up at the crack of dawn, grabbing Delhi's great new Metro (where every passenger is patted down at security), to the massive train station, and five hours later we were outside the Chandigarh station surrounded by at least twenty cab and rickshaw drivers fighting for our fare. Business was slow, so two white faces coming off the platform was an opportunity not to be missed! They hounded Deepak once they realized he was with us and wouldn't back off. A cop even came over and starting pushing them away. It was a total spectacle, so hats off to Deepak for talking tough and putting up with such a fuss about foreigners again and again. We finally struck a deal and were on our way through Chandigarh's carefully planned grid of long avenues. The orderliness was quite the contrast with the other cities we'd seen, although it wasn't exactly pedestrian friendly either.

Visiting government buildings in India meant interacting with Indian government, which in a way I found even more interesting than the architecture. We registered at one place for passes to enter Corbu's High Court, Assembly, and Secretariat buildings and got some pieces of paper. As we made our way to each building, we handed those over, along with our passports, and many other pieces of paper were stamped, typed, and processed as we sat in cramped and worn out rooms inside Corbusier's masterworks. They weren't holding up so well, inside or out. Life goes on after design...

Some very real terrorist incidents in the state over the years led to physical and bureaucratic layers that made our visit somewhat disappointing, with both our time and the sights cluttered. I was taking my passport out as much as my camera. And so it goes on the architecture pilgrimage.

Before a thrilling last-minute run for our 5pm bus (the driver almost gave away our pre-paid seats), we crammed in one more stop at Nek Chand's Rock Garden. We practically ran through it but enjoyed the spontaneous creativity and persistence of its creator. We survived our night time bus ride back to Delhi and were in our beds by 12:30 am. Another long long day!