All this is the fruit of conscious planning by the city’s founding fathers
Written by Rajnish Wattas
Autumn in the West is the season of ‘fall’, when “the falling leaves drift by the window/the autumn leaves of red and gold” as that classic song goes. But in the gardens of Chandigarh, it’s a season of second coming for blossoming trees. It is the time when the Goldenrain tree, the Australian kikkar and the kassod are laden with varied hues of yellow. The treetops in the gardens and parks are glistening with shiny leaves, as the monsoon rain has washed away all summer dust.
In fact, there is never a pause here in the year-round symphony of nature. Heralding the spring are the seemul trees that get draped in big scarlet red flowers, followed by the lilac-blue dreamscapes of Jacarandas interspersed with yellow Tecomas. In early summer, bouquets of whitish-pink kachnars flowers, the bright reds of the gulmohars and the radiant yellows of the amaltas paint the town in myriad hues.
The City is fortunate to have a ‘garland of gardens’ in the form of the Leisure Valley — an 8-km-long stretch laced with varied theme gardens running from north to south. Each component has a theme park such as the: Flower Garden, a Sculpture park, a Rose Garden followed by Shanti Kunj till the Garden of Palms in Sector 42. There are theme parks in other sectors too such as the Japanese Garden, Terrace Garden and the Fragrance Garden. We even have a Parrot Park and a Butterfly Park!
And all this is the fruit of conscious planning by the city’s founding fathers. A ‘Pact with Nature’ was envisioned by its visionary architect-planner Le Corbusier the seeds of which were sown early by Dr M S Randhawa. But unless all stakeholders come together, this cherished green heritage with the burgeoning pressures of urbanisation, population and highest car ownership could kill the sacred testament.
Although Chandigarh has annual events like the Rose Festival and a ‘Chrysanthemum Show’, these have gradually eroded into more of fun and games carnivals than truly nature festivals. What is needed is a vigorous, comprehensive focus on celebrating Chandigarh’s uniqueness of being a ‘City in Garden’ in contrast to the dehumanising steel and glass habitats of metropolitan hubs.
A month-long celebration of the city’s communion with nature — experiencing it in all its subtle nuances, would be ideal. Perhaps, something akin to the spirit of Cherry Blossom festival of Japan, now also celebrated in other places globally. There could be guided tours of gardens by experts; not only identifying trees, shrubs and flowers but also birds, small mammals that co-inhabit our urban ecosystem. Perhaps even Chandigarh’s house-proud residents, who fondly nurture their gardens through every season, could be persuaded to open their gates for visitors.
There could be audio-visual lectures, workshops, painting and photography competitions focussed on the theme of ‘Nature in City’. There could even be a mountain viewing of the city’s majestic Shivalik hills with experts pointing not only its various peaks but star gazing too of the night sky! Le Corbusier on his first visit to Chandigarh in February 1951 wrote to his wife Yvonne in Paris, “I’ve never been so tranquil and solitary, absorbed by the poetry of natural things and by poetry itself. We’re on the site of our city under a splendid sky, in the midst of a timeless countryside..”
Time to remind ourselves of that poetry.