Chandigarh: Modern with a Capital M

We spent a day in Chandigarh - India's only "planned" city - on our way to New Delhi. In 1947, the newly formed Indian government comissioned Le Corbusier to design a new capital for Punjab, which had lost Lahore to Pakistan in the partition. The result is a grid of neighborhoods, called sectors, organized around strip malls, transit hubs, and public institutions and gathering places. Le Corbusier's most famous architectural contribution is the High Court (no cameras allowed inside), where we saw the "advocates" in their robes:) Though it was built nearly 60 years ago, Chandigarh stood in stark contrast to other Indian cities we visited. No cows in the street, sidewalks on every street: this conformed to our conception of urbanity.

Despite all the planning, Le Corbusier could not predetermine all the development in Chandigarh. In 1957, a local fringe artist, Nek Chand, started sculpting figures from recycled goods (in this first picture the female figures are covered in the bangles so many women wear here) in an undeveloped corner of Sector 1. 18 years later his 12-acre "fantasy rock garden" was discovered and eventually recognized as more than squatter's trash. After winding our way through pebbled walkways for a couple hours we eventually found ourselves in a large open courtyard, with an ice cream truck and huge swing sets. It was the perfect end to this mostly strange, sometimes beautiful, often funny, and always irreverant creation.







We ate our last thali and our last gulab jamun and rasmalais in Chandigarh. The pictures never do these justice.
I miss rasmalais. I looked to see if there were recipes online to make them at home and most recommended starting with ricotta. That is so not going to cut it:(

xoxo Jessie