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Chandigarh was India’s first post-independence city, not only because it was planned but because its very existence was a consequence of independence — and of Partition. Having lost Lahore to West Punjab and Pakistan, East Punjab was left without a capital, and the problem was compounded by the fact that much of what was now Punjab was actually part of Patiala state.
No fixed address From 1947 till 1953-54, when Chandigarh was officially inaugurated, the state capital shifted from Ambala to Jalandhar to Simla, the government always in transit and with no fixed address. The question of where to build the new capital was beset by all kinds of thorny issues, ranging from local political pressure to financial considerations. One thing, however, was clear: none of the existing cities could be converted into the capital. Amritsar was too close to the border and a hostile Pakistan; Ambala was a cantonment town and didn’t have the infrastructure for future growth; Jalandhar and Ludhiana couldn’t accommodate the flood of refugees or provide good enough communication facilities. Three things were considered essential for the new capital: strategic and military security; adequate space for the government machinery, for refugees and for future expansion; and the potential to replace the material and psychological loss of Lahore, the cultural and commercial hub of Punjab. Chandigarh, chosen after much to-ing and fro-ing between the prime minister, the premier of East Punjab, Gopichand Bhargava, and its governor, Chandulal Trivedi, was selected by airplane reconnaissance. A planned city for modern India Located approximately 390 km north of Delhi, it is situated at the bottom of the picturesque Shivalik range of the Himalayas, bounded on the east and west by two seasonal rivers, the Sukhna and Patiala Rao. Eight thousand five hundred acres of fertile land, dotted with mango groves, covered the first phase of ten square miles of capital-building. The total area to be acquired for the two phases of development consisted of 28,000 acres in fifty-eight villages, in the Kharar tehsil. The best possible talent was engaged to plan the new capital. An initial idea to hold an international competition for its design was abandoned, not only because it might have been too expensive but also because a planner from the West was unlikely to know the social context of the country. A new city, a planned city for a modern India, would clearly need to break with some aspects of the past, but it would surely have an Indian character. Two Western town planners, Albert Mayer and Otto Koenigsberger, were already in India at the time, the former having served as a lieutenant-colonel in India during World War II, and the latter, a German Jew, who had fled Nazi Germany and arrived in India at the invitation of the diwan of Mysore. Both men welcomed the opportunity to prepare a plan for Chandigarh, but ultimately Mayer was selected. A master plan was drawn up by him, but fate and circumstances intervened to prevent him from designing the housing and government complex. In the event, and after visits to various European capitals, the English architects, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, and the Swiss-French architect, le Corbusier (who famously said, ‘Your capital can be built right here, at 35 rue de S`E8vres,’ when told he would have to spend at least three years in Chandigarh) were hired to implement Mayer’s plan. Together they embarked on a design project that was not only bold and experimental in architectural terms, but also sought to ‘redesign’ social relations by reconfiguring the relationship of private and public space, between the government and those governed. This experiment was not, and has not been, without its detractors and naysayers, professional and lay, and planned Chandigarh has come in for its fair share of criticism. The making of Anokha Gautam Sahgal bought his piece of land measuring 4,550 sq yards in Chandigarh in August 1953 for the sum of Rs 22,218, and was directed to complete the construction of a residential unit on it within five years. His choice of Pierre Jeanneret as its architect was unsurprising, as much of Chandigarh’s domestic architecture fell to him and the Fry-Drew team. The only private homes he designed, however, in addition to the Sahgals,’were the residences of prominent Chandigarh citizens Nirlep Kaur and Mrs I. D. Oberoi (of Patiala and Oberoi chain of hotels, respectively) and of P. L. Varma, chief engineer of Chandigarh’s Capital Project. All four homes were located along Uttar Marg, the avenue defining the north-east edge of Chandigarh’s residential area, and all the plots were roughly one acre each. Zoning regulations required that boundary walls along this avenue be kept low in order to afford an uninterrupted view of the hills beyond, and this became a major asset and common design determinant for all four homes. The Sahgal home, situated on a corner plot, sits on about a fourth of the entire plot. It was designed as a duplex unit with public spaces and service areas on the ground floor, and bedrooms on the upper floor. These were arranged in a single row, each oriented towards a view of Sukhna lake and the hills in the distance. The most dramatic feature of the house was a ramp connecting the ground to the first floor, a bold design statement, setting off the black terrazzo floors and white painted walls. A shallow pool (built against Gautam Sahgal’s wishes) separated the two wings of the house, and was regularly used by him to cool his bottles of beer! Ramp wars Anokha (so named by Nehru) was built with Nayantara in mind, but she was far from happy with its design. She disliked the ramp intensely, said it made her feel as if she were in an airport, and complained about the ‘sheer impracticality’ of the whole house: ‘What possessed anyone to design or approve it? Obviously both people responsible were men: Jeanneret and Gautam. More and more am of the opinion that men least practical creatures on God’s earth.’ She listed the house’s ‘absurdities’: it assumed its owners’ great wealth, the presence of a retinue of servants, and high maintenance – miles of black floors and glass doors and windows. She decided to beard the lion in his den and speak to Jeanneret about a compromise solution to The Ramp. Her account of their exchange in her Chandigarh Diary is hilarious. Jeanneret arrives – small, bald, with fringe of longish white hair at base of skull. Bow tie, bell-bottom trousers. ‘You and me combat?’ he asks. I assure him no combat. ‘Then why this here?’ ‘This’ is Ranjit’s chest-expander lying on stool, which I assure Jeanneret is not preparation for combat. We study ramp. Gautam gives alternative solution which he had propounded two nights earlier when he, I, and Shiv returned from Bill Mathula’s dinner. Solution: Wall to break up hall. Lower half of ramp to be replaced by staircase. Solution presented by Gautam as mine. Jeanneret aghast. Pronounces it architectural imbecility.‘Le ramp est le ramp! Cannot be half stair, half ramp!’ Adds: ‘Le ramp est signature of house!’ Adds: ‘This no bourgeois conception like every other house of staircase.’ Says Gautam: ‘My wife thinks entrance dominated by ramp resembles airport.’ Jeanneret burst out: ‘But airport one very modern building!’ I venture to say airport inside house rather inconvenient. Feel I am culprit as Gautam declares he loves ramp. Argument back where we started. We repair to drawing room to resume drink, then again to corridor to study ramp. ‘Le ramp majestique! One beautiful view of whole corridor upon entrance,’ says Jeanneret. Much discussion, at end of which Jeanneret says, ‘Only for you will think of syst`EAme. But very difficile. Must keep la v`E9rite.’ I agree. So grateful that Jeanneret will think of ‘syst`EAme’ that I invite him to soup and salad on 9th. The ramp stayed.
New citizens of the city But Anokha had its pluses too: the children loved it, the garden was a pure pleasure, and the views were spectacular.The excitement of living in a brand new city with a designer stamp isn’t hard to imagine, but it wasn’t only its physical aspect that was newly minted. Everything started from scratch – offices, schools and colleges, marketplaces, hospitals, businesses, the government, fledgling cultural groups. Chandigarh, as its historian Ravi Kalia notes, represents the ‘`85 individual and collective account of its citizens, striving for self-determination, self-knowledge and self-actualisation`85’ Who were they, the new citizens of Chandigarh, who inhabited the city and defined its post-Partition personality? Just as much of pre-Partition Lahore’s cultural community – painters, writers, film-makers – gravitated to Bombay, its professionals and bureaucrats moved to Delhi – and to Chandigarh, if they happened to belong to the Punjab cadre of the ICS and IAS. College teachers and university professors, doctors and lawyers, government servants who had first relocated to Simla, then moved to Chandigarh, made up its social circle. And among them were members of Lahore’s bohemian set, free-thinking, liberal, either in the arts or in education and government service. Khushwant and Kaval Singh, Bunchi and his wife Champa Mangat Rai, Jaya (Kikook, who also happened to be Bunchi’s cousin) and Jivat Thadani, Sarla and Balbir Grewal, both with the government; the playwright Balwant Gargi, Arthur and Sheila Lall (Bunchi’s sister). Prem Kirpal, then a journalist, and the Tony Fletchers (the same A. L. Fletcher who, as officer on special duty, Capital Project, had opposed holding an international competition to select a planner for Chandigarh). The Hindustan Times had its correspondent, Krishan Bhatia, The Statesman sent Pran Chopra, and The Indian Express had its local reporters. Dr Kaka Swift, in charge of government hospitals, and his wife Prem; Guddo and Navin Thakur, who did a great deal for Hindi theatre in Chandigarh, the architect Jugal Chowdhury and his wife, Eulie, and many others formed a close-knit social circle that remained constant for many years. — Excerpted with permission from the publisher
Elegy for the city and relationship Set in Chandigarh, Storm in Chandigarh is like an elegy for the city, a kind of farewell to a house, a life and an environment that Nayantara knew would no longer be available to her. Despite her initial unease in Chandigarh society, leaving it was definitely a wrench. As early as October 1965 she could write: ‘I have been thinking this evening of how much I shall miss Chandigarh — miss having it as my home, as being mine, and it did become mine over the years.’ She would miss the view of the hills from her window, the walks by the lake, the brilliant sunsets, the sound of the children’s laughter as they raced up and down the infamous ramp. More than these, though, Chandigarh had become something of a symbol in her marriage and her life. It was here that Gautam and she had started life together again after the 1959 crisis, in a new house, and it was here that the first blow-up between her, Gautam and Bunchi took place in December 1964. She had decided after This Time of Morning that her next novel would be set in Chandigarh so that she could relive some part of her life, recreate some of the city’s particular character.
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