Rock Garden

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.

  Nek Chand, conceived and began creating this marvelous garden in 1958, on forest land in a gorge. He recycled waste material, collected from all over the city to make his sculptures. He worked in secret as the land he used was land which in 1920, had been marked as conservancy land- buffer forest land. His work was discovered in 1973 and though illegal, the State gave in to public opinion and the garden was officially inaugurated in1976.

      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