Word: chandigarh
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...sweating laborers. Women in bright saris poured concrete into wooden forms; long lines of men gouged out foundations, spread smoking tar on road surfaces with hands swathed in jute sacking. Bulldozers grunted and dusty trucks rumbled up with loads of hand-made brick. The name of the place was Chandigarh, and there last week the world's most modern city was rising from a desolate plain...
India's government chose Chandigarh in 1950 as the site for a new Punjab capital, and put aside 167 million rupees (about $35 million) for the project. To lay it out, they chose one of the world's best-known city planners: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, France's aging (65) stormy petrel of architecture. For the man who has spent his career energetically condemning the world's cities, it was the chance of a lifetime...
...towers of two crumbling Hindu temples look down on the Valley of Chandigarh, on its scattered mango farms, its monkeys, deer and wild pigs, its blue jays and peacocks. For weeks now the jays have been screaming and the monkeys chattering because a group of Indian engineers have invaded their valley. The engineers are looking for well sites; they are going to build a city in the Valley of Chandigarh...
...everyone agrees with Minister Bhargava. Last week the mango growers of the Chandigarh Valley were up in arms. Arguing that the capital will take fertile land, some 170 farmers have been demonstrating against the city for five weeks, with torchlight parades during which they try to stop water-boring operations. The government's reply has been to arrest the demonstrators, take them out of the valley, and release them to walk home...
Already the water engineers have sunk four successful wells in the Chandigarh Valley-in each case the site was pointed out by the traditional Hindu water diviner. After the September monsoons, building will start on government employees' housing. Says the Punjab's Chief Minister Gopi Bhargava: "It will be the world's most charming capital...