The Pai
and the Shenoy couple decided to go on a 7 day trip to the land of the five
rivers and visit Dharamsala too, enroute.
We reached Chandigarh, from where we began our
trip, on Feb17th. We were met at the airport by our taxi driver Mr. Devi Singh.
He was a warm, friendly person. Being very knowledgeable, he, throughout the
trip, kept us entertained by narrating various interesting anecdotes about the
places, the people etc.
Chandigarh, unlike Namma Bengaluru, lives up
to its sobriquet ' the city beautiful'.
The roads which are clean, wide and untouched by potholes have broad
sidewalks lined by shade giving trees. All commuters follow traffic rules. All
this makes driving a pleasure. The city is clean, litter free, with no roadside
hawkers (except children selling balloons at the signal lights). There are many
mango orchards in the city, giving the whole place a cool, fresh ambience.
Our first
visit was to the famed Rock Garden. The Rock Garden is near Lake Sukhna and is
spread over 20 acres of land.
On
entering, we were surprised that there were not very many visitors but soon
realized that it was because it was nearing closing time. We wandered through superbly laid out
courtyards with cool, calming
waterfalls, beautiful balconies and picturesque pavilions.
Vamanbhavaji's enthusiasm for photos was so contagious that I too caught
it. Clicking away to capture the wondrous sights, we climbed up and down
,wandered through winding pathways, but still did not come across any of the
famed sculptures made from recycled ceramic. There were no signs, nor people to
guide us. After going around for quite a long while, we reached the
amphitheater.
This was a lovely courtyard, with vast verandahs. It had mirror
work pillars and swings hung from the rafters. Though beautiful, we were by now
not able to appreciate our surroundings as it had got dark and we could not
find the exit. We were also rather upset as we had not seen the expected
sculpted human figures. Ushakka asked
some people, but they were unable to understand her. (She was rather agitated
as it was getting dark and late). The entire area was being decorated for a
wedding reception. We asked one of the persons there for directions to the
exit, as well as where we could see the sculptures. He said, "Seedha
jaayeeji,exit bhi aajeyegaa, who bhi dekhenge". “Car park ke pass ayenge?”
“Ha car park udher hi hai.” We followed his directions, could see the exit but
not the sculptures
Tired after a
long day, a bit upset that we had missed seeing wonderful
the sculptures,
we slowly made our way to the exit. When we came out of the gates, we were
shocked to note that we had exited nowhere near where our taxi had been parked.
Yes we were near a carpark. We had been directed to the gates and the car park,
used exclusively for events hosted there.
We then walked along the boundary walls (quite a long walk) and reached
our car park. We decided to visit the Rock Garden again the next day to see all
that we had missed out.
The
next day we told the gatekeeper that we had visited the previous day, but missed
the sculptures. He told us to enter through the exit as it would save us an
unnecessarily long walk. Gratefully we entered through the exit and the sights
enthralled us.
These
courtyards had figurines of dancers and musicians, soldiers, vendors and
servers, a veritable zoo of elephants, tigers, bears, deer, camels, peacocks and of course monkeys.
All these made out of broken utility ceramic and glass ware. We were delighted to see all this and
clicked away to capture the images digitally.
The Rock Garden is truly a captivating place
with its fantastic sculptures. The inter linked courtyards which form this
fantasy kingdom mesmerise the visitor with gurgling waterfalls, beautiful
pavilions and charming sculptures of dancers, musicians, soldiers, birds and
animals- all made out of waste broken ceramic and glass household items. Any
King would be ecstatic to rule over this wonderful and enchanting land
No comments:
Post a Comment