SPOT LIGHT 24
CHANDIGARH
Just about 65 years ago, India’s first planned city was just a bunch of 50 villages, with swathes of agriculture land. The commercial hub of Le Corbusier’s city – the hip Sector 17 – was Rurki village and Sector 24 Shezadpur village. Sector 17, where glitzy showrooms and top brands lure you, was then an open field, with sparse population, with people rushing back to their homes by sundown.
Angrez Singh, 77, resident of Barheri, a village that still exists on the city’s outskirts, was 17 when Corbusier began building the city. “There were about 50 villages in different parts of city with agriculture as the source of income for the people,” he says.
“There used to be a single route for the public transport – from Rurki village (now Sector 17) to Manimajra and then to Ambala. After Le Corbusier arrived, villagers were asked to move out of the city,” he said.
The residents of 28 villages out of 50 have been rehabilitated in Manimajra and in the surrounding areas of the city. Ninety-two year old Wilaiti Ram of Manimajra has similar memories of early Chandigarh, where nobody wanted to come and live. “Land prices were very low. It was a time when wild animals would be on the prowl in the city,” he says.
Septuagenarian Prem Singh says Manimajra, the oldest area in the city, was a planned town in itself which was surrounded by a 6 feet high boundary wall and had four main gates. “The fort of Manimajra is a living symbol of the rich Mughal architecture,” he says. Manimajra was founded by Maharaja Garibdass in the 18th century and after the Partition, refugees had taken shelter.