Back To the Future

Chandigarh, India

Chandigarh is unlike any other city in India, because it was built as a planned city - it's clean, green and organised, with wide roads, nice buildings and big parks - and was created from scratch in the fifties by The French-Swiss architect Le Cobousier as a new state capital. I guess you could call is India's version of Milton Keynes, the dull planned city in England. I had no plans whatsoever to visit the place at all, I'd never heard of it, and it was just an insignificant changeover point for trains as far as I was concerned beforehand. However I met an English architect a few days before in Shimla, and after he praised its virtues for a few minutes, I was persuaded to stop over for a day.

 

 

The journey down from Shimla in the mountains to Chandigarh in the plains, was a bit special as I took the 'Viceroy's Toy Train' - a small, slow and rattly train on a line that the British Raj built a hundred-odd years ago. Cut into the contours of the hills with lots of bridges and tunnels, it was more like a bike ride than a train ride; gently cruising down the hills through nice woodlands, stopping at loads of small stations and only averaging about twelve mph. An Indian guy in his forties sat and chatted to me for a while - an IT systems architect for Siemens, who was coming home from holiday with his family, including his young daughter and niece. The girls were very cute, asking me all sorts of questions about where I came from and why I couldn't speak Hindi, and challenging me to a science quiz on the planets. I asked him how their English was so good, and it turns out schoolkids in India are now only allowed to speak English at school, not Hindi. Which means I guess means in, say fifty years time it will pretty much be the main national language. 

It was a beautiful sunny day for the journey, and the temperature turned from fairly cool to nice and comfortable as we descended from about 2000m to 400m altitude. I spent the last hour or so hanging out the open door of the carriage, holding onto the side rails just like you see in movies - admiring the great valley views and watching locals and and rail workers walk alongside the tracks. I've never had the opportunity to do that before and it felt so liberating and carefree to be able to; just fantastic.

 

The nice side of India

 

And not so nice

At the other end at Kalka, I had to get twenty miles or so to Chandigarh which seemed straightforward, and I joined up temporarily with a couple of recently retired British guys who were also on the train. However the bus station was nowhere near the train station so required a rickshaw ride, and once there the bus timetable apparently was nonsense so we had to ask about five different people until getting the right story. When it turned up it then didn't take us into Chandigarh but another stop on the outskirts, which required then running along a verge and hopping another bus, which even then stopped a mile or two from where I was staying... never simple here. On top of this, because it was an affluent city there was little budget accomodation, so I ended up reluctantly staying in this weird place in the suburbs, some sort of hostel/shopping outlet/function venue, and the worst place I've stayed on this trip. A huge white room with walls covered in scuff marks and coffee stains with nothing but a bed and a smashed up wardrobe, no bedsheets or pillows until I asked, a window pane missing for the air conditioner, and hot water to the sink but not the shower. I was reluctant to take it but had little choice, and decided to spend as little time there as possible and leave the next day.

The hassle continued the next morning, with what would normally taking an hour at home, taking an entire morning here. Firstly just finding somewhere to get some breakfast, then buying a train ticket, funnily enough from a bus station. This involved going to the desk to find out that the only train to where you want to go is at 3.00am, deciding which of the seven classes of seat to choose from, filling out a pointless form saying this along with your details, and standing in the line whilst locals jump the queue and push from behind. Then after twenty minutes whilst the staff all have a tea break, speaking to them to find you have to wait another ten minutes for something to happen on their system, and eventually receiving a ticket leaving not from your city, but the next one along! Draining.

Taxiiiiiii!

My rucksack was full to bursting with various things to post home that I'd collected along my travels, so the next point of confusion was the Post Office. I got a cycle rickshaw there and queued up to find they don't sell any sort of packaging, and was referred to a man who sat on the street outside. He told me to take a seat on a polystyrene box and he ran off, returning a few minutes later with a cardboard box which he appeared to get from a skip. He carefully packed it with my things, then cut the box down to size, taped it, wrapped it in cheap cotton (standard practice), roughly stiched up the sides, and taped it again. Back in the Post Office, I then had to write out three identical sets of custom forms (photocopier anyone?) detailing exactly what was in there, weight, value, everything, and then go through another long queuing process. My patience had been thoroughly tested that morning, and this time when a couple of guys were constantly pushing as-if to make the queue go faster, I finally lost it, holding out both arms and blurting out 'PLEASE stop pushing and give me some space'. They did! When it was my turn, I then found out the Post Office had discontinued their cheap sea service and didn't have enough cash on me, so had to go on a trawl  around the area to three different cash machines before I found one that worked, before joining that queue again and eventually completing this seemingly simple task! 

Those slightly over-detailed descriptions sum up the process of doing anything in India. Everything is so beaurocratic, clunky and unnecessarily overcomplicated. Once they find a system just about works that's it, it'll never change, never improve. Or that's the way I see it anyway.

I was now able to actually do something with my day, so walked to the city museum to find it shut because it was Monday, and instead grabbed some lunch and walked through a nice park - a bit of a rarity so far in India. Being a nice sunny day it was full of people sat around chatting and playing cards, but most noticeable was that they were almost all men. On the streets in India everything is dominated by men, as tradition dictates as they're still the breadwinners in India, but doesn't explain why women can't go out and enjoy the sun as well. I continued on along the wide tree-lined streets, and passed the complex of government buildings, bemused that nothing here is like the rest of India, but instead more like America. The planned approach obviously works as it's the most affluent city in India, but was it all fake, or a glimpse into the future I mused.

My final stop was the main thing I actually came here to see - The Rock Garden. A kind of garden and sculpture park built secretly and illegally in the sixties, it was created solely by a local guy called Nek Chand, using only building waste from when the city was being originally built. It was so clean, so clever, a relaxing and so beautiful - the first such man-made thing I'd seen in India. The council eventually found about about the place and tried to shut it, then decided they quite liked it and got involved themselves to extend it and open it to the public. But as with many things when the creator looses some control (and where the council get involved), the newer bit seemed to loose it's edge completely, and was dull, drab, dirty, noisy, and unfinished.

 

 The rock garden

As I mentioned previously, I had a 3am train to catch so spent that evening as leisurely as I could, eventually taking the rattly local bus to the next town of Ambala, being dropped off near the train station. This was to be my first experience of Indian Railways proper, as the previous train was a bit of a tourist special. It was now about 11pm and I made my way in the station entrance which was absolutely packed with poor-looking people with huge piles of luggage, with many just lying sleeping around the entrance area, the lobby and platform floor. It was just a sea of people, most of whom I guess were waiting for late trains, but some I guess who were just homeless. I wandered about, feeling a little uncomfortable and confused amongst the chaos, and eventually came across the 'Upper Class Lounge' which I found my second class ticket gave me entry to. In reality it was just a concrete room like you'd see in an old British station, but was much quieter than the platform allowing me to get a couple of hours sleep lying across a row of seats; partly on my bag to stop it getting stolen. At 2.30am my alarm sounded and I found the right platform and chatted to a local guy who was a bit confused as to why I was traveling. The train turned up just ten minutes late, and to my relief I managed to find my carriage and bed fairly simply, and whilst simple - a vinyl bed in a four person compartment - it was quite neat and clean. I went to sleep, heading for the Rishikesh - a holy town on the Ganges river, and a supposed backpackers Mecca.

Chandrigah had been a bit something-or-nothing. I was pleased to have visited to see a futuristic India and a bit of art, but if it'd skipped the city I probably wouldn't have missed it.