Nek Chand Rock Garden Chandigarh

The Rock Garden in Chandigarh is surprising, charming, cool, fresh and wonderful. It is a water canyon garden and was made, illegally, by a road inspector. He did the early work as a hobby in his spare time and without the authorities knowing that he was doing it. When they found out it was agreed that it could remain in place and it is now very popular. Nek Chand saw it as a recreation of the village in Pakistan which he had fled at the time of India’s 1947 Partition. There are crowds of figures made out of waste material. Like the visitors, they gaze at the wooded gorge and the water features. The design may also have been inspired, consciously or unconsciously, by the Hindu Epics. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata also have large casts with events taking place in forests. Lord Rama was the seventh Avatar of Vishnu and the stories are of humans interacting with gods.