Category: Travel
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Bihar
The State of Bihar, in the eastern part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, is amply watered by the Ganga and its tributaries, and there is no denying that the landscape here—particularly during the early monsoons when we visited—is among the loveliest in India. So many views of the land, rich in untapped mineral wealth, are crossed by broadly curving, slow rivers. Roads and fields are fringed with palm trees and a profusion of wild, tropical vegetation. Rural vistas end along the curves and jags of low, green hills under a soaring sky, blue in the sun or darkening with the promise of rain.
This land also claims an illustrious history as the onetime center of the subcontinent’s culture and politics. Its name, Bihar, is derived from the Sanskrit vihara (Buddhist monastery), and it was here, 2,500 years ago, that the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi tree. His Jain contemporary, Mahavira, the quintessential master of non-violence whose teachings reach into modern times in the form of ahinsa (ahimsa) and Gandhi’s ideals, also originated from this region.
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Nobody’s Land
A Journey to the Pantanal, Brazil
“Cuiabá is the city of mangoes. We don’t buy them, just pluck and eat,” says Rizardo, our wildlife guide. Riding in the bed of a pickup truck, we are going down the Transpantaneira, a dirt road that runs 145 KM south into the Pantanal, one of the world’s largest freshwater wetlands in Mato Grosso state, Brazil.
I understand what Rizardo meant when we get to the first fazenda, or private farm — mango trees galore, alongside those of guava, papaya, lemon, coconut, grapefruit. The mangoes he likes, he tells me, are borbon and pequi, not rasa or coração de boi. After lunch, I rest in a hammock and watch a sly-looking toucan struggle with a hard-shelled fruit. On a branch above, a blue-green macaw nibbles on a ripe guava; partly eaten ones lie scattered on the ground; they are pink inside. It is hot and humid but a breeze is blowing across the parched farmland.Category: Travel -
Bodh Gaya
Bodh Gaya is the single most sacred site of Buddhism. It was in the forest here that Prince Siddharta sat under a tree and achieved enlightenment two and a half millennia ago. From here, he went out as the Buddha to teach his Eightfold Path to the masses. The tree was soon enshrined within a stone fence, and the marking of this holy spot later grew to include a stupa, which was overbuilt by larger and larger stupas, a temple, and other markers (such as stone lotuses) noting just about everyplace the Enlightened One had so much as placed his foot during the period of his epiphany. The famous tree is now called the Bodhi tree (Bodhi is Pali for enlightenment; it’s also called a pipal tree, or Ficus religiosa), and the village around it is known as Bodh Gaya.
The bounteous, sheltering Bodhi tree that stands here today is said to be the 3rd generation descendant of the very tree under which the Buddha sat. A cutting of the original tree was sent to Sri Lanka by Ashoka’s daughter, where it flourished. A few hundred years ago when the original died, a cutting was brought back from Sri Lanka. The area around the tree and its associated Mahabodhi temple is serene; monks and lay Buddhists come here from all over the world to meditate. 
Inside the temple, the wealthy international Buddhist trust that cares for the site has taken great pains to “modernize” the setting. What is actually a dank, cave-like temple cut from black granite, has been painted over in bright colors with thick layers of high gloss paint. Padded linoleum covers the floor, with a small patch cut out for offerings. A chandelier lights the interior and spotlights focus on the Buddha’s statue inside a clear glass enclosure. The ancient statue, carved from the same black stone as the temple, is now immaculately coated with gold. They have even installed air conditioning, so one can feel the blessings of the Buddha immediately upon entering his timeless presence. There is nothing left of the look, feel, or ambiance to suggest that this is an ancient Indian site, as opposed to any ordinary modern temple. This is not entirely a bad thing in a living temple; modern pilgrims can be very comfortable here. But as an archaeological treasure, it has been defaced.Category: Travel -
A Journey to the West
Journey to the West, “China’s most beloved novel of religious quest and picaresque adventure,” was published in the 1590s in the waning years of the Ming dynasty. The novel’s hero, “a mischievous monkey with human traits … accompanies the monk-hero on his action-filled travels to India in search of Buddhist scripture.” * It is “an extended allegory in which … pilgrims journeying toward India stands for the individual journeying toward enlightenment.” * Indeed there aren’t many books in which “go west, young man” would be a call to go to India.
The inspiration for this novel was a journey made by a 7th century CE Chinese man, Xuan Zang (or Hieun Tsang). Though raised in a conservative Confucian family near Chang’an (modern Xi’an), Hieun Tsang followed his brother into a Buddhist monastic life (Buddhism had come to China after the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220 CE). A precocious boy, he mastered his material so well that he was ordained a full monk when only 20. Disenchanted with the quality of Buddhist texts available to him, he decided to go west to India, to the cradle and thriving center of Buddhism itself. After a year-long journey full of peril and adventure, crossing deserts and mountains, meeting robbers and kings, debating Buddhists on the Silk Road and in Afghanistan (where he saw the Bamiyan Buddhas, recently destroyed by the Taliban), he reached what is now Pakistan.
He spent 17 years in India, traveling, visiting places associated with the Buddha’s life, learning Sanskrit, and studying with Buddhist masters, most notably at the famous Nalanda University. His erudition seems to have brought him fame and royal patronage in India when in a religious convocation “in Harsha’s capital of Kannauj during the first week of the year 643 … Hieun Tsang allegedly defeated five hundred Brahmins, Jains, and heterodox Buddhists in spirited debate.” * -
On The Road With Jesus
Sam Fentress is a Jack Kerouac of sorts. He travels the roads of America looking to find not himself but Biblical signs and bill boards – messages to praise and persuade. In his many sojourns he has found farmhouses, grain silos, restaurants, hair salons, gas stations and even traffic signs bearing Biblical messages. An artist and a photographer, Fentress first started photographing roadside biblical messages when a student in his class brought him a picture of a barn covered in Scriptures. Fentress was stunned.“It just knocked my socks off as a picture,” he said. “The boldness of the farmer in covering the roof, the sides — every square foot of the barn had some sort of Bible quote, Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, Epistles, Revelation.”
Fentress has photographed an urban billboard which rotated its message to read among other things.
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Forbidden City
Surrounded by moat and high walls, the fabled Forbidden City earned its name by being closed to everyone outside the Chinese royal family and their eunuchs and maidservants. The largest surviving palace complex in the world, it was completed in 1420 and remained the ruling seat of China from early Ming Dynasty until the end of dynasties in 1911, when the last Empress Dowager abdicated on behalf of her charge, the child Emperor Puyi, and China was declared a republic.
Thereafter, only the inner courtyards were reserved for the young Emperor and the continuation of his sequestered, privileged life, while the doors to the outer palace were thrown open to the public. Any peasant could now enter and gawk at the home of his former lords. But as a symbol of the imperial, feudal system, even this arrangement couldn’t last and in 1924 the young Puyi was evicted; his childhood home became the Palace Museum, an epic domain of cavernous halls, gilded thrones, yawning courtyards, and half a
millennium’s worth of accumulated rich kitsch.
At 720,000 square meters, the sheer size of the palace complex and the beauty of its finest jades and ceramics are awe inspiring, even while its decadence and intellectual blandness raise the hackles. During its heyday, some 6,000 people occupied its nearly
one-thousand buildings and over 8,000 rooms, a village unto itself. In spaces with such poetic names as Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Preserving Harmony, Hall of Character Cultivation, Hall of Earthly Peace, and the Gate of Moral Standards, its inhabitants plotted martial campaigns and undertook power grabs, treachery, and murder—we are given to believe, without irony. Virtually isolated from the world of ordinary folk, the anguished grievances, frustrations, and desires of crippled concubines and their castrated manservants, virgin maidservants, and ignoble nobles with too much wealth and power, too little learning or self-knowledge, must have engendered an interpersonal and political dynamic that played out like tragedian
theater in a village of the damned. -
Chinese Food for Thought
In gastronomic matters, I am squarely among the less intrepid of men. Raised by a vegetarian mother who wouldn’t allow meat in her kitchen and a near-vegetarian father, I only had chicken and goat meat a handful of times during my teens — egged on by parents who nevertheless held meat to be salutary for a growing boy. My introduction to fish and prawn came only in college. Thereafter, living outside India, I began eating other animals too — cow, pig, sheep, crab, calamari, etc., once even lobster, snail (Paris), guinea pig (Cuzco), and wild boar (Patagonia). Then one fine day six years ago, I renounced eating mammals, and now prefer veggies over even chicken and fish (though I retain a weakness for Bengali style fish). Long live tofu, beans, and lentils! Most Indians are even less “experienced” than me. It is no small wonder then, that in neighboring China things are dramatically different. What restaurants serve there would make many a hardy Indian stomach churn. Here are selections from a typical and popular restaurant in Beijing:
1. Traditional Peking style boiled sheep’s head
2. Duck blood in a spicy Chongqing style
3. Royal duck tongue / Marinated duck head
4. Braised donkey meat in superior soup
5. Spicy bullfrog
6. Delicious black fungus
7. Braised pork treasures (sic)
8. Duck heart with cumin
9. Eel sects with brown sauce / Toasted Eel
10. Pork ear slices
11. Hot quick duck gizzard
12. Hot duck viscera w/ sunny egg
13. Barbequed suckling pig Lashu style
14. Young frog in bamboo
15. Pig bellies with garlic
16. Hot tasting chicken feet / Duck web [feet] with mustard
17. Stir-fried duck gizzard
18. Chicken claw with pepper
19. Dry fried ass meat in Xiang style
20. Braised pork trotter tendon and sea cucumber -
On Diversity
Last October, I went sightseeing in Calcutta with a friend. We began with a short cycle rickshaw ride, took a local train to Sealdah, wandered near College St, boarded another train to the Kali temple at Dakshineshwar, caught a commuter boat across the Hooghly to Belur Math, went on a bus to BBD Bagh, hopped on the Metro to Park Street for a Kathi roll, and ended the jaunt with a taxi to my friend’s home. In just a few hours, we had sampled six modes of transportation. Notable exclusions include the tram, the auto, and the hand-pulled rickshaw.I wondered where else in the world are so many public transportation modes possible. Calcutta, like the rest of India, abounds with such diversity of experiences. They are integral to the claim I’m about to make now: India is perhaps the most diverse country on the planet.
Some will ask: How can this be? Can India, an old, conservative culture that has seen relatively little migration in recent centuries from outside the subcontinent, be more diverse than, say, the US? Others will readily agree, invoking the scores of languages and dialects of India, regional cuisines, prodigious variety of faiths and customs, folk music, dance, attire, art, architecture, and other aspects of diversity that adorn colorful tourist brochures. What, after all, do denizens of Ladakh or Mizoram have in common with natives of Kutch or Coorg? However, to buttress my claim further, I’ll mention some other key aspects of Indian diversity beyond these routine invocations.
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John Frum
Some time ago, Ruchira brought to my attention an article about a village on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, where the people believe Prince Philip of England is a god. Though it might sound preposterous to many of us, it’s actually not a joke. As the article explains, Prince Philip is a foreigner who traveled across the sea from his native land to marry a powerful woman and, as it happens, the people of Yaohnanen village on Tanna know that a pale-skinned spirit from their own island once made just such a journey. Somewhere in the past decades, Prince Philip came to be regarded by these villagers to be that selfsame island spirit.And why not? This religious tradition dates back some decades to the time when Vanuatu was a colony of European powers. Conflating their own mythic histories with the current news they would have heard during those colonial times was not an unreasonable thing for the islanders to do, especially given that the goings on in faraway England and the lives lead by British royals might seem every bit as mythical and magical to them as their stories of spirits might to us. What’s more, by recognizing this powerful man as being one of their own kin (albeit of a spiritual nature), they associate themselves directly with power and can appeal for benevolence.
At least on one level, this is the aim of religious mythology: to associate ordinary people with mystical power. One sees in the emergent and localized religions of Vanuatu the unvarnished essence of how religion works, how it arises, what function it serves in society and in individuals, how it binds groups in common understanding, and also how it impedes understanding between people of different beliefs.
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The Burning Ghats of Varanasi
(For a significantly modified and expanded version of this post, please click here.)
Varanasi (Benares, Banaras, Kashi), on the left bank of the Ganga (Ganges), is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus. Among “the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world, its early history is that of the first Aryan settlement in the middle Ganga valley. By late 2nd millennium BCE, Varanasi was a seat of Aryan religion and philosophy and a commercial and industrial centre famous for its muslin and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.”
It was the capital of the kingdom of Kashi during the Buddha’s time (6th century BCE), who, after achieving enlightenment, gave his first sermon at nearby Sarnath (it is said that he purposely avoided this hotbed of Brahmanism). The Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsiang visited Varanasi in c. 635 CE and saw it as a centre of art, education, and religion. The city, he wrote, extended for about 5 km along the western bank of the Ganga. -
A Portrait of Kerala
Kerala is known for its long tradition of religious amity, high literacy rate, high social status of women (due in part to its former matrilineal system), and a relatively decent public health service. In 1957, it democratically elected the first communist government in the world. Owing to its high population density, long exposure to foreigners, and a mercantile spirit, lots of Keralites travel abroad for work, most to the Middle East. Hindus, with their diverse sects and practices, form the majority. Christians, over a third of the population, belong to the Orthodox Syrian, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches. While Muslims reside throughout the state, the Mappilas of the Malabar Coast constitute Kerala’s largest Islamic community (the earliest known Indian Muslim community, having existed since the 8th cent. CE). Jains live mainly in the far north. The Jewish community remains a small, exclusive sect, centered around an ancient synagogue at Cochin.
First mentioned as Keralaputra in a 3rd-century-BCE rock inscription of Ashoka, the region was famous among the Greeks and Romans for its spices (esp. pepper). During the first five centuries CE, it was a part of Tamilakam, and so partially controlled by the eastern Pandyas, Cholas, and Cheras. In the 1st century CE, Jews arrived and St. Thomas the Apostle visited (or so the Syrian Orthodox Christians believe). Arab traders introduced Islam in the 8th century. Under the Kulaśekharas (c. 800–1102), Malayalam emerged as a distinct language and Hinduism became prominent. The Cholas often controlled Kerala in the 11-12th centuries. Ravi Varma Kulaśekhara of Venad briefly ruled southern India in early 14th century. After his death, Kerala became a conglomeration of warring chieftaincies, among whom the most important were Calicut in the north and Venad in the south. -
Children of a Lesser God
A disproportionately large number of Indians have congenital defects and visibly stunted growth. The poorest of them are often abandoned by their families and/or forced to beg. Tourist and pilgrimage sites inevitably become their favorite stomping grounds. Why does it seem so much worse in India, even compared to the lower GDP nations of, say, East Africa (the only part of sub-Saharan Africa I have seen)?
Excluding the unlucky rolls of genetic dice (many of which can be avoided by a medical pre-screening), most birth defects are due to maternal malnutrition and substance abuse, as well as exposure to toxins, pollution and hazardous waste. In India, the latter may be no less significant. Given India’s worsening urban environments and anemic healthcare, one has to stretch facts, ignore evidence, and be a determined optimist to see light at the end of this tunnel. At least for the foreseeable future, India should remain the prime destination for photo ops of the kind below.
Addendum: A regular reader of Shunya’s Notes, a geneticist, emailed to say that these photos are more likely to be of early childhood polio victims rather than congenital defects, except the second photo which is “more likely to be a congenital disorder because both the upper and lower limbs in the victim appear to be severely deformed presenting almost a case of classic clubfoot which involves a congenital upward and inward twisting of the foot. Whereas in the other photographs the victims appear to have a lower motor neuron disease which is most likely Poliomyelitis and the upper part of the body remains comparatively unaffected … unless one can do an Electromyography (EMG) on the victims, [one can’t be certain].” Since they still fall within the ambit of this post’s title, I am inclined to leave them as they are. -
Rereading Naipaul
An Area of Darkness by VS Naipaul
India: A Wounded Civilization by VS Naipaul
I first read Naipaul in the mid-90s: India: A Million Mutinies, The Enigma of Arrival, and A Way in the World. They resonated with me well enough. But in the ensuing years, living in California and W. Europe, I read far more about Naipaul than by him (an excerpt from Beyond Belief; his essays in the NY Review of Books). Somehow, over time, my view of Naipaul began to sour.
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At the Foot of Mount Yasur
(The travelogue below by Usha Alexander has just appeared in The Best Travel Writing for 2007 by Travelers’ Tales.)
I am six hundred miles east of the Great Barrier Reef in the archipelago of Vanuatu—or, as they say in Vanuatu, the “ni-Vanuatu” archipelago—home to nine active volcanoes. One of these, Mount Yasur on the southern island of Tanna, is said to be the most easily accessible live volcano in the world. Anyone can walk right up and peer down into its fiery belly. A real volcano: fire and brimstone and flying ash.It is late in the dry season when I get to Tanna with my friend, Michael. The days are crisp and warm, the nights cool enough to require long pants and a sweatshirt—a departure from the perpetual warmth of Ambae, more famously known as Michener’s “Bali Hai,” which is the more northerly island, just shy of the equator, where I have lived and worked for eight months as a Peace Corps science teacher. We plan to spend three days at Port Resolution, and then head up to Ienemaha, the village closest to the crater, where Michael’s tenth-grade student, David, lives. David adores Michael as his teacher and a living soccer maestro, so his family graciously asked us to be their guests for a couple of days.
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Anandpur Sahib
Anandpur Sahib is a holy city in Punjab. Its historical significance to the Sikhs is second only to Amritsar. Hundreds of Sikhs once embraced martyrdom here. Sikh history is deeply marked by their struggle for survival in a volatile land, especially during the peak of Mughal persecution under Aurangzeb, which radicalized the Sikhs (many paintings in the museum at the Golden Temple in Amritsar record the horrifying persecution stories retold across the land). The mystical faith of Guru Nanak transformed into the fiercely spartan and nationalistic faith of Guru Gobind Singh, who also committed the Sikhs to the five Ks. In early 19th century, Maharaja Ranjit Singh further militarized the Sikh nation, creating the first modern army in the subcontinent. Reversing the dominant historical trend, he went west to conquer new lands (which later fell in the British lap).
Takhat Kesgarh Sahib—one of five Takhats, or seats of authority, in Sikhism—is the centerpiece of Anandpur Sahib. It stands upon a hill and is visible for miles. The Khalsa was revealed here by their tenth and last guru, Guru Gobind Singh, who selected the five beloved ones and administered baptism of Khanda (Khande di Pahul), instituting the Khalsa panth on Baisakhi, 30 Mar 1699. A special congregation was held that was attended by thousands. Kesgarh Sahib Fort was built here in 1699, replaced long since by the Gurdwara (a room in its inner sanctum holds twelve important military relics of Guru Gobind Singh). The Sikhs celebrated the 300th anniversary of the day in 1999 with thousands of religious gatherings all over the world. Two Gurus and families of four Gurus lived in Anandpur Sahib for many years. -
A Hammam in Damascus
Traveling in India, for all the personal growth it brings, is a dust, soot, and sweat laden experience. Even after a bath, rubbing a random spot on my arm produces little black streaks of muck. One gets used to it but during such moments I have often recalled my visit to a hammam in Damascus in Feb 2001. I was traveling alone and, on a whim, dropped by at a hammam near my hotel. It was one unforgettable experience.I had signed up for the hour-long, full-service option for about $6, including tea in the end. It also came with a personal attendant to navigate me through the many chambers of the hammam. Without a lingua franca, we had to rely on gestures. The deal began with my undressing and putting on a white cloth “modesty wrap”, mandatory at all times. I remember thinking of a remark by Herodotus on the non-Greeks of his day: “For among the … barbarians [or barbaros, a Greek term for all non-Greeks, who all sounded like ‘bar-bar’ to Greek ears] … it is reckoned a deep disgrace, even to a man, to be seen naked.” Old habits may die hard but right then they suited my Indian sensibilities just fine.
I was first led to a small, furnace-hot sauna chamber. Just as I had begun broiling in my own sweat, the door opened and an orderly tossed a half-bucket of water on the heating elements in the corner, at once turning some of it into steam and nearly scalding me. I rushed out with a yelp; my personal attendant appeared, knowingly smiled, and led me from this “hot room” to a much larger “warm room”, which had a few people milling about through a mist-like steam. There were taps and washbasins along the wall, where I self-administered the first of many soap-n-wash treatments.
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Ghost Town in the Levant
(See an updated entry on Quneitra, including a video.)
Quneitra was once a bustling town in the Golan Heights and southwestern Syria’s administrative capital with a population of 37,000. The word ‘Quneitra’ derives from Qantara, or ‘bridge’, between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Known for its abundant water resources, it has been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age. Over the millennia, many peoples, including Arameans, Assyrians, Caldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Arabs have occupied it. 
In 1967, during the six-day war, Israel captured Quneitra. It then became a site of many battles but, except for a brief interlude, remained in Israeli hands until 1974, when a UN-brokered agreement led to an Israeli pullback. Before withdrawing, however, Quneitra was evacuated and systematically destroyed by the Israeli army (based on eyewitness accounts; UN General Assembly resolution 3240 in 1974 condemned Israel’s role in its destruction. Israel disputes this account). Many prominent Western reporters, agreeing with the UN and Syrian version of events, saw this as nothing short of an act of wanton brutality — a whole town methodically ransacked, dynamited, and bulldozed.
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The Birthplace of Ganesh?
(Text below written by Usha Alexander in May 06. For more pictures click here.)
Dodi Tal, considered the birthplace of Lord Ganesh, is a lake in Garhwal, western Uttaranchal. We hiked 44 km in 3 days, going up and down from about 5,000 ft to 11,000 ft, where we camped near the lake. Unfortunately, it was drizzly or overcast the whole time, so we couldn’t view the snowy peaks all around. Still, the walk was incredibly beautiful, through the luminously green, high mountain woodlands of the early rainy-season, the cliffs punctuated by streams of clear water gushing from the rocks, with breathtaking drops falling away on one side of the path.
We had asked for two people to accompany us: a guide/cook and a porter, but when they turned up on the first morning, there were five of them! It seemed like overkill for only the two of us, but they all had large packs stuffed with provisions for our trip and we figured we couldn’t turn any of them away, denying them their day’s wages [Rs 225/$5]. So, we hiked up with an entourage of five men—a bit silly, but we had fun; and, as it turned out, their knowledge and assistance was invaluable to us lowlanders. The cook made hot breakfast and dinner each day; lunch was cobbled together in sporadic and makeshift chai stalls; one night they cooked a local wild veggie that tasted like asparagus. -
The Dilwara Temples
Many Indians claim that the Dilwara Jain temples of Mt. Abu are a more magnificient achievement than the Taj Mahal – both were stunningly ambitious, state-sponsored, multi-year, monumental, marble-work projects – but the claim is an imponderable to me. One difference, however, springs to mind: while thousands of art lovers and devotees also worked for a generation on each of the two Dilwara temples, the Taj, proof of an emperor’s inability to rationally accept his lover’s death, was built largely by hired men. I can understand a man’s desire for a memorial to his lover; I also believe that a modest memorial need not be any less meaningful, but no, size clearly mattered to Shah Jehan. He had to divert enormous resources of state to fund his absurd private infatuation. While I think the Taj is rather sublime – I am awed by its beauty each time I visit – the so-called “romance of its inspiration” bugs me. For the untold thousands who labored on it, Shah Jehan didn’t even have the magnanimity to dedicate the Taj to, say, “all the lovers of Hindustan,” or something similarly inclusive. The poet Sahir Ludhianvi, speaking for the masses, famously said of the Taj: “Ik shahanshah ney daulat ka sahaara ley kar / Ham ghareebon kee mohabbat ka uraaya hai mazaaq” (An emperor relying so on his wealth / Has ridiculed the loves of the poor like us). On the other hand, the Dilwara temples, built half a millennium before the Taj, seem to me expressions of a fairly democratic religiosity.
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Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh
I have welcomed very greatly one experiment in India: Chandigarh. Many people argue about it; some like it, some dislike it. It is the biggest example in India of experimental architecture. It hits you on the head and makes you think. You may squirm at the impact but it has made you think and imbibe new ideas, and the one thing which India requires in many fields is being hit on the head so that it may think. I do not like every building in Chandigarh. I like some of them very much. I like the general conception of the township very much but, above all, I like the creative approach, not being tied down to what has been done by our forefathers, but thinking in new terms, of light and air and ground and water and human beings. [-Jawaharlal Nehru. Speech, 17 Mar 1959]
Chandigarh may well be India’s greatest achievement in urban town planning. But despite Nehru’s enthusiasm, and the evident success of the experiment, the Indian political establishment seems to have learned nothing from it. Chandigarh ought to have become the harbinger for more planned cities. What came instead was unplanned urban sprawl, dispiriting shanties, and creaking infrastructure, punctuated now by gated enclaves built for the rich by a land-grabbing mafia of private developers. That Chandigarh did not inspire a hundred planned cities points to a colossal failure of the Indian imagination.
