When the junk yards maintain its dignity and make you drool over the place and send you a message that these junks are for keeps, what will you call this- an imagination at work, may be.
The profitless, imprudent material has its fate to the junk yard or a store house which will hardly witness any human visit. But then there are places that have occupied all the potentials of these ruins to create a fascinating pictorial sequence onto 40 acre of land. It is like an irony to me when the waste here seems to go unwasted, like creating a plethora of industrial mess and then using it to create a huge garden which remains intact to your brains. The Rock Garden of Chandigarh in India entails a recent voluptuous history, that is not mythological but reminds of the 50s, era after the cruel partition of India and Pakistan, which displaced many lives and families and then amidst such chaos where basic infrastructure was a challenge to the Indian Government such craft emerges in secrecy and later become a legendry work of art in the history of India.

The genesis of this garden was around 1957 by Mr. Nek Chand who came from Pakistan during the partition. Here in India he worked as a road inspector for the Public Works Department (PWD) in Chandigarh. That time Chandigarh was an aspiring project to be, massive work of development was going on to recreate this city  into a well planned and developed city just as the cities of the west, and this work was done by the French/Swiss architect Le Corbusier. This big project was executed and implemented by the PWD of Chandigarh. And Nek Chand being one of the employees here was in charge of junk store of this very department.
It was around this time that he actively starts working on a piece of land beside the PWD stores he was in charge of. The land was near the High Court building in Sector -1. The stores provided Nek Chand with loads of material, space and labour, which he utilized to develop this small patch of land. He collected rocks, gathering from the Shivalik hills, the seasonal Sukhna lake, Patiala Rao and Ghaggar rivers. The largest river Nek Chand quarried was the Ghaggar, located approximately eight miles from Chandigarh and all this collection of rocks and stones was done on his bicycle.

With the rocks, other waste materials were collected that came from those villages that were demolished to make space for the new city of Chandigarh. These fragments were the remains of the villages, and consisted largely of everyday mundane possessions such as broken pots and bottles. While you take a walk in this garden you can very well relate to it.
At some stage in 1965 a more conscious effort was made to transform and spruce up the found fragments and rocks into a pro forma display. This site being in a dense forest area was also needed to be cleared and concrete and mud flooring was prepared and initial structures made up of oil drums and iron shuttering, The PWD stores provided Nek Chand with an abundant and free supply of cement, bitumen, steel reinforcement bars and oil drums, free labour all of which he required to develop the site. The massive construction site that was Chandigarh provided a suitable decoy for Nek Chandís covert hobby. Provided everyone was ëworkingí or ëlooking busyí it seems that very few questions were asked.
His commitment to his work was so strong that he continued on his camouflaged project working evenings and carried it till four year, though being nervous that if discovered will lead to the termination of his employment. But still this worldly enlightenment did not put a pause in his cryptic work.

At this point sometime in 1969 Nek Chand decided to visit the cityís chief architect, M.N. Sharma, a disciple of Le Corbusier, to unravel his work. On seeing the magnificent, super innovative, and ultra dazzling and splendid work, he faced a dilemma sort, a conflict between his own duties (as the work was illegal) and the creative potential of Nek Chand. So M.N Sharma promised him all the support to get recognition for his work and later his work got all the applause and appreciation and the authorities took over, and the garden was inaugurated as a public space in 1976, presently taken care by the Rock Garden Society. But in 1990 it has face a threat from the administration as they sorted out the permission to demolish this artifact to make a bypass to connect a village. The machineries reached the site to demolish it but they were resisted by a mega human shield, enveloping the site. Later the government intervened and and an alternate way was made.

I am finding hard to portray this garden in words. Its too humongous sized, the walking around can be taxing but still it creates in you a unique excitement to move around further. The mega water fall is really breath taking, only by imagining the massive ordeal carried out to create it. You will find the broken earthen pots stacked, the olden days plug sockets engraved in the wall, broken bangles creating skirts of the ladies images there, iron rods make barriers, broken ceramic tiles arranges in a mosaic pattern beautifully glisten when the sunrays fall onto them, the beautiful work of art, the imagination knows no limitation and that can be gorgeously witnessed in here.

Top of it Chandigarh is the best planned city in India and visiting Sukhna Lake here which is another man made piece makes whole experience complete. Rock Garden is still under construction and is been now completed in phase. A theater is also being constructed to allow the cultural programs to be held here. Itís an exotic place and you can devote a complete day for this visit.