I have heard people rave about this city, so one could imagine my levels of enthusiasm while planning my trip there. I knew that it was what one calls a planned city. Which means that a famous town planner is given a plot of land and given a free hand to allocate land, build and create building laws that ensures his own immortality, the famous town planner was Le Corbusier.
I arrived in a Volvo bus with a dysfunctional AC. The conductor was even more solicitous then an airhostess, at the beginning of the journey he visited every seat to ensure that the personal air blowers faced the passengers under them. Once the AC broke down and passengers began to complain he offered to call a cab for them. No one took up the offer.
Entering Chandigarh I got a certain feeling of spaciousness, the roads were wide, there were no buildings blocking my view and everything was green. But this sense slowly changed to bewilderment as I got further into the city. Even though I had heard that the ‘planned’ meant that the city was broken down into sectors I was not ready for what I saw. All commercial activity was put into these two storey red buildings that ran for a few hundred meters in length. Thus it was not strange to see three hotels situated side-by-side or restaurants in a long chain offering a kaleidoscope of cuisines. Also these complexes were on one side of the road.
These buildings bring a very Soviet era feeling to the place which is diametric to the wealth and ostentation that seeps from its pores.
I arrived in a Volvo bus with a dysfunctional AC. The conductor was even more solicitous then an airhostess, at the beginning of the journey he visited every seat to ensure that the personal air blowers faced the passengers under them. Once the AC broke down and passengers began to complain he offered to call a cab for them. No one took up the offer.
Entering Chandigarh I got a certain feeling of spaciousness, the roads were wide, there were no buildings blocking my view and everything was green. But this sense slowly changed to bewilderment as I got further into the city. Even though I had heard that the ‘planned’ meant that the city was broken down into sectors I was not ready for what I saw. All commercial activity was put into these two storey red buildings that ran for a few hundred meters in length. Thus it was not strange to see three hotels situated side-by-side or restaurants in a long chain offering a kaleidoscope of cuisines. Also these complexes were on one side of the road.
These buildings bring a very Soviet era feeling to the place which is diametric to the wealth and ostentation that seeps from its pores.
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