Chandigarh — The City of Wellbeing
An poetic ode to my homecity ❤
Within the embroidered patchwork of cities I have seen
In all the years my family has moved around
Counting every place we crossed state-borders to live in
I never discovered a city as beautiful as Chandigarh.
It is an outlier in my haphazard, homely nation
A little island of order and wellbeing
Like a golden petaled rose sown in history’s winter
Rising into the daylight through careful precision
The fruits of prosperity it bears still sweeten life
For everyone who finds a home in this city.
Beyond the evenly sliced sectors & green roundabouts
The fresh breeze & lush trees laden with amaltaas buds
Beyond the sunlit shores of Sukhna lake
And the winding stone-cut alleys of Rock Garden
Beyond the fame of Asia’s biggest Rose Garden
And everything else newspapers have told you about my city
I will tell you more about Chandigarh’s hidden secrets
The ones I saw for myself as I cycled the city to explore.
Now most things in Chandigarh look unassuming
Modest, efficient and neat looking
Government buildings are made with apple-red bricks
And there are countless quadrants of independent family homes
You cannot cross a corner without hitting a children’s park
It’s usually sprinked with chips & ice-cream wrappers from a little Verka shop.
As an imaginary traveller going by
Cycling through the canopy shaded bike trails of Chandigarh
Seeing the clean quietude, safety and wellbeing
You might mistake my city for being a little boring
So here is what you haven’t heard of yet.
There is a new LED lit, underground tunnel in Rose Garden
It is lined with rows of paintings & a pavilion with a dolphin scuplture
You might see every sort of artist lurking there
Skateboarders, reel-makers, college kids with guitars
Hip hop dancers, terrible karaoke singers
And the skaters that glide along those sleek dark floors.
Behind the Rose Garden as well
There is a small arts-council called the Kala Bhavan
They once flew in a child prodigy and a NASA scientist there
For a Ted Talk for school children that I went to.
And even now if you come across their building
Each month you will might see
Panicky theater-nerds pacing the grounds with papers
Busy writing new scripts to put into production
If they get lucky enough to perform upon
The stage of the city’s largest and most historic theater.
This one is named after my favourite writer actually
It is none other than Rabindranath Tagore
But on the subject of his theater, let me tell you
Some general good advice as a traveler
You’ll find various free programs that
the Government of Cultural Affairs takes care to organise.
Classical dances, musical performances and Indian plays.
They even call international dance troops & wonderful comedians
Spiritual speakers & Padma Bhushan awarded musicians
Isn’t it mind blowing you can watch all of that for free?
I also know that everyone has heard of Elante Mall
Complete with shops, game-zones and PVR cinemas
Consumerism, couples, yada yada
So once more I will tell you about something less heard of.
The more beautiful sight to see is the one
You will find at the east end of Sukhna lake
A grand and massive snowy statue of Buddha rests there
It is crowned centremost in the Garden of Silence.
Let us tred lightly on the flight of stairs down the lake
There is the Chandigarh Golf Range to see
The city’s golf course takes pride to many international golfing champions
And it has many amazing up-coming children as well.
Go along a few sectors and you will hit a cacophony
Of Sector 8’s delicious street-food markets & aroma scented cake shops
Also let us not forget the time honoured Sector 17
It is an immense stadium’s worth of shopping grounds
But my favourite place there is the English Book Shop
With beautifully laid out shelves in every book genre imaginable
Their bright spectrum is genuinely enough to make
Any self-respecting bookworm weep
There is also the famous Punjab University to see
Though that place is really like a small city instead of a campus.
But I go to MCM college and it is simply heartwarming
And any city is so much more beautiful
In the warm & light filled company of your friends.
I’m sure that I am still forgetting much
People who have lived here for decades will tell you more
Now I have spent only three springs here
But it seems like the city has changed my life forever
In its safety, natural beauty and quiet magic
There is always a secret spot just around the corner to discover
A miracle a mile, it seems to me
For the charm and grace Chandigarh enables
I can never repay this city
I do adore it so
And by now, dear reader
I hope I made you love my home a little more
