Skip to main content

Rock Garden

The Rock Garden in Chandigarh is the work of a rare genius.  Only a Nek Chand could have created such beauty from sheer waste.  All kinds of waste from pieces of broken bangles and porcelain articles to boulders and electric sockets are made efficient use of producing an aesthetic wonder.  

Nek Chand was not a trained artist.  Art was his hobby.  He spent his spare time creating works of art in a wasteland he cleared in Chandigarh.  As his work progressed and drew the attention of people, the government was in a conundrum.  How to destroy such exceptional artwork merely because it was built up on land belonging to the government?  Good sense prevailed (strangely!) and Nek Chand was given not only the permission but also regular employment with helpers to assist so that he could create the paradise in the semi-desert that Chandigarh is.

Below are some pictures from my recent visit to the Rock Garden.

Rocks welcome you


Nek Chand was not only an artist, but he had certain engineering skills too.  He observed the way the architects of Chandigarh built the well planned city and adapted many engineering feats in order to give shape to some of the intricate structures in the Rock Garden. 






Even the amphitheatre is created out of waste materials

As I sat in the amphitheatre, with Maggie beside me sipping fresh fruit juice to quench the dehydration produced by Chandigarh's merciless sun, I thought why there were so few Nek Chands in the world.  Nek Chand was a man with an obsession, or a passion.  I think all of us have our own obsessions or passions.  But why has money become the single or dominant obsession today?  Does capitalism inevitably make people greedy?  Does capitalism strip people of their nobler passions?  


Will a time come when the human species will evolve qualitatively?  As Bernard Shaw imagined in his superman?  Towards Teilhard de Chardin's Divine Milieu?  

Nek Chand's Rock Garden gave me some weird dreams.

Comments

  1. Weird Dreams :)
    Not that I speak from experience, but they say that it is those who believe weird/impossible dreams are possible, who make impossible possible - or something like that.
    I visited Rock Garden once. And it is on my list of places my children have to visit. It truly is a special place.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone should visit the Rock Garden at least once, I think. We may be inspired in many ways.

      Dreams, yes; they do matter much.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Go ahead and visit the place, Paresh. Avoid summer; 49 degrees won't be the ideal temperature! Rock Garden is near to the Sukhna Lake, another beautiful place - I couldn't savour the beauty of the Lake since I left the Garden only at 8 pm when it was going to be closed.

      Delete
  3. Wowwww....God bless Nek Chand's soul...wonderful work of art....:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. People like Nek Chand are the really blessed souls, Isaac.

      Delete
  4. Brilliant! There is so much of character to this place.. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Character, you said it. That's why I said "rare genius". This is something exceptional people think of.

      Delete
  5. I went to the Rock Garden in 1995. This post took me back to the time when as a kid on summer vacation, our parents took us to Chandigarh and Shimla! Rock garden is truly amazing - it depicts the power of passion! Parul :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's much info about Nek Chand in the Chandigarh Museum too. An aerial view of the Garden is given in the museum and it looks amazing. The photo I clicked in the museum didn't come out well :(

      Delete
  6. Nice place..hope to visit sometime..:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plan for the next winter or any season except summer.

      Delete
  7. Shila yugathile shilakalkkuellam, chiraku mulachirinnu...chilangakettiya swapnangalkkum chiraku mulachirinnu...by Vayalar is actualized by Nek Chand. go to you tube ..search for songs from film omana malayalam. you can experience the video

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're quite a romantic, Babychetta. I used to call Vayalar the revolutionary of romance.

      Thanks for the you-tube reference.

      Delete
  8. Thanks for this insightful post. Beautiful place and your awesome adds to that beauty.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really one of the places i have to visit... Have heard a lot about it..
    Good work by Nek Chand.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's worth a visit, I assure you. I spent a hot summer evening there and found it enticing. The other seasons would be bewitching.

      Delete
  10. Well that is amazing...another absolutely my kind of a place

    ReplyDelete
  11. Memories bring smiles on our face.This is one of those memories.Had been to Rock garden few years back.Great art work from waste by Nek Chand.
    http://www.srikri.com/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...