Nek Chand's Fantasy Gardens

by DARSHAN

SINGH MAIN!

The "untutored genius" Nek Chand has created another imaginative empire in Washington, D.C. (facing page), similar to his "kingdom of the gods and goddesses" that draws public acclaim in Chandigarh (left).

For the inauguration of his garden in the American capital, the creator was greeted by young Joy Robinson on behalf of the children of Washington (above). Robinson also made the dedication speech.

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the celebrated French architect Le Corbusier set hen in the early 1950s, about creating the garden city of Chandigarh out of a sprawling wilderness of rock, rivulet, bush and field at the foot of the Shivaliks, he couldn't have imagined that soon enough an obscure, untutored genius, setting aside all ceremonies and economies of art, would rise from the same soil to give Corbusier's dream of man, society and city a collateral dimension of such great charm as to become a compelling presence. For that's precisely the miracle wrought by Nek Chand, a lowly PWD (Public Works Department) official who, squirreling away tons of unwanted government scrap and street trash, and spiriting away all manner of rocks and stones from the neighboring hills, began to build, away from the prying eye of doubt and envy, of rule and protocol, what he loves to call his "kingdom of the gods and goddesses. " That is, indeed, how this empire of the imagination rose, rock by rock, pebble by pebble, so that when it was "discovered" around 1974, it appeared as though a Punjabi Prospero had, with a magic wand, frozen a whole pageant of kings and queens, of beaus and belles, of rustics and clowns in a moment of unbelief! For here in this lithic world, a Stonehenge of sorts, roamed all manner of men and mammals caught in varying aspects and attitudes, disporting themselves at courts and carnivals, at weddings and festivals, at school parades and village wells. The crowded acres with their natural outcroppings and fashioned stoneover 20,000 sculptures in panoramic detail and design-presented something of a massive Brueghel effect from a vantage point.

Thus had a man called Nek Chand (literally "benign moon") created out of discarded cans, broken bottles and bangles, cracked pottery and china, fused electric tubes and switches, colorful rags and beads, a most daring show called the Chandigarh Rock Garden! No wonder, a French museum curator wrote in the visitors' book: "God has a competitor-Nek Chand!"

The analogy with Shakespeare's Prospero is, of course, a metaphorical extravagance, but so strong and palpable is the element of fantasy in this fascinating spread of boulder, barrel and bottle; of stone, concrete and crag, against the sound of soft, murmuring water that one is tempted to invoke images of magic and fairy tales to describe this world of enchantment.

Nothing but "the imagination of loving" and

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an act of enormous faith and fortitude could have created it. It's a work of labor and worship on a heroic scale, of sadhana in its primal and profoundest form.

Nek Chand shies away from the word "artist" whenever one brings it up in his presence. But if ever there was an artist who knew not the edicts and canons of art, and of art primers, and whom nature taught straight from its own bibles and books, it was this supremely unselfconscious man risen from nowhere to claim coercive attention. Though aware now of his power and fame, he has little of that hauteur and swagger one associates with the artists of this cut and class; he has no Bohemianism either. In his simple shirt and trousers with an ancient, weather-beaten umbrella in hand, he could still pass for the road inspector of yesteryear. There's not a touch of "artiness" about the man. It's all transparency, all directness. Anyone can today drop in on him at his modest home, or his stone-studded, Spartan office, or at any of his numerous haunts and retreats inside the Rock Garden at any time, and be treated to unfailing magnanimities of word, gesture and smile. He carries no chip on his broad, honest shoulder, though when baited, he can be impishly witty, even acidic at times.

That's the pride of art, and an art of that order and magnitude needs some indulgence. A sense of dry humor is now frequently in evidence; it's perhaps his armor against the busybodies of Chandigarh.

The passage from Chandigarh to Washington, D.C., where Nek Chand recently spent five months to create a Fantasy Garden for the Capital Children's Museum, and where he was honored, admired, feted and toasted by a grateful citizenry headed by its mayor, is essentially a passage to love and understanding linking two peoples, two cultures through the energies of folk art. In the dedication ceremony on October 5, 1985, which was declared the Nek Chand Saini Day, Washington Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. observed that the Indian artist had a "creative mind" which "enabled him to transform these unwanted objects into evocative reflections of the beauty that exists in our environment." He had brought to this part of the world an abiding aura of India.

Walt Whitman sang of the immensities that radiated from this hoary land of India, and he celebrated the spirit of piety animating Indian thought in relation to all beings, objects and things. Nek Chand knows nothing of the great American poet, though

should he turn to Whitman's soulful outpourings, he would have no difficulty in recognizing a kindred spirit in labor and ecstasy. In each case, there's a salute to life's generosities, felicities and fecundities.

Nek Chand's "passage to America" is, then, in the voyaging vein of Walt Whitman, a consummation of the Dream of India.

Today, at 62, Nek Chand, loaded with honors that include the Padma Shri award, La Grande Medaille de Vermeil of the City of Paris, the honorary citizenship of Baltimore, is as strenuously and insightfully involved in the enlargement of his dream as when he set out 27 years ago to create a "kingdom" the like of which had not been seen in the world.

In an interview for SPAN, Nek Chand spoke on his background, his art and work, his new projects and plans.

MAINI: Before we focus on your latest creation, the Fantasy Garden in Washington, it would be instructive to have a peep into your own childhood. For all your artifacts have an aura of child-art. Do you see your work that way?

NEK CHAND: In a manner, yes, though my own childhood was too ordinary to suggest any grand ideas. I spent that period in village Berian Kalan (now in Pakistan) as part of a peasant household. Like all children, though, I lived a great deal in the world of fantasy and make-believe. I did build castles in the air and frequently fiddled with stones and sand to create houses and temples and palaces.

Before your dream of a full-blown Rock Garden in Chandigarh, did you ever have intimations of such a project at any stage?

No. The whole thing materialized gradually. I started it as a little hobby, and over the years it began to assume new and challenging dimensions. Once it got going it carried me along on its own force and momentum. Its origin lay in my whim and fancy.

Are you in any way helped by nongovernment agencies and organizations?

Well, apart from government funds, we do receive all kinds of scrap from local shops, factories and other agencies. Quite a few involved citizens also make voluntary contributions in kind-objects, cement or lime. I may recall here what an American, Ceramic-covered cement figures populate a terracotta hill in Chandigarh's Rock Garden.

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Tom Zopf, a CARE official posted in Chandigarh some years ago, did for me. He would often drive me to the nearby hills in his jeep to scout around for rocks, and later haul some of them for me in his trailer. This kind of spirit helps. The Zopfs are now my great friends, and I visited their home when I was in Washington recently.

And now to your Washington project.

How did it materialize?

It all started around 1978 when Dr. Washburn of the Smithsonian Institution happened to see the Chandigarh Rock Garden. Later, at his insistence, Ms. Ann Lewin, director of the Capital Children's Museum, also came to see me, and finalize the project. The Government of India came in at a later stage when it was decided to make the Fantasy Garden in Washington an integral part of the Festival of India-in fact, the only permanent artifact or complex of art to be left behind in America.

Did you consult with some American artists and architects before giving concrete shape to your American enterprise? Is it chiefly an extension of the Chandigarh experiment? Anything specifically American about it?

No, I didn't have any formal consultations or collaborative talks. Basically, it's an extension of the Chandigarh idea. But naturally there are a few departures and variations, keeping the American conditions and materials in mind. Mostly, however, it's an Jndian show again on that piece of soil. I did not know enough of American life and thought to be able to create anything specifically American. In any case, the language of folk art is the same all over the world.

Have you any new foreign projects in mind, or in hand?

After the Paris exhibition and the Washington project, I have not committed myself to any assignment abroad. I have an invitation from Israel; however, I mean to stay on in Chandigarh, and complete my work here. I have no desire to settle abroad either. I should wither away uprooted from India.

0 About the Author: Darshan Singh Maini, a former professor of English at Punjabi University, Patiala, contributes regularly to several magazines and academic journals.

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Dam Maraes Remembers Archibald MacLeish To most SPAN readers, Dom Moraes needs no introduction. His first book was published at 13, he had poems in English and American magazines at 16, was the youngest poet ever to win the Hawthornden Literary Prize at 20, completed Oxford at 21, and since has written/edited 17 other books (five of poetry), covered wars as a roving correspondent, written movie and TV scripts, edited magazines, helped release political prisoners, written columns and been the subject of a BBe film. He now lives in Bombay with his wife, Leela Naidu, the actress.

MacLeish was tall when I met him, with gray wings of hair above a high brow, and a calm and knowledgeable face. Grave and gentle, his manner was that of a seasoned diplomat, but his conversation that of a poet. We met a very few times, in the United States, and we talked mainly about verse, his prosody, the great personalities he had known. He had been friendly with Pound and Hemingway: the curious difference between him and other poets I have met was that among his other close friends were Niels Bohr and Franklin D. Roosevelt. "He has probably taken a more active part in public life," an article on his life says, "than any other poet."

He didn't, however, say much about this aspect of his career, and talked about the poetry of other people much more than of his own. He had read a few of my poems and asked me an intelligent and difficult question about them.

"You live in England," he said, "but you come from India. Nothing very much happens in England these days, but there's a lot happening in India. Shouldn't you write from where the action is?" I suggested tentatively that the bulk of poetry came from within the poet, rather than