\nJournalist Chhabra, in conversation with author-critic Nirupama Dutt, started off by clarifying that \u201cthis is not a book about architecture\u201d. \u201cIf you search online or ask a bookseller for a book about Chandigarh, you will end up with a tome on Le Corbusier. That\u2019s fine, but there are people inside those buildings!\u201d
\nDutt underlined how this is arguably the first book of its kind. Simply put, it\u2019s a collection of articles \u2013 stories, experiential pieces and essays \u2014 published as part of a column branded ‘By The Way’ in the Hindustan Times between 2013 and 2017. The writer, Aarish Chhabra, is a journalist since 2008, and has worked for The Indian Express too.
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\nThe book deals with an array of topics, from politics to people to the general trivialities of life, all connected somehow to life in Chandigarh or how life looks from here. It was released on Tuesday at Chandigarh Press Club by senior resident editor, HT, Ramesh Vinayak.
\n\u201cBut life in this city can seem so beautiful, at times, that it becomes perfectly drab. This book aims not to be like that. Because it does not take itself too seriously! You are free to do that, though \u2014 take yourself and this book seriously, that is!\u201d jokes Chhabra.
\nIn the conversation, Dutt set the pace by going down history lane: \u201cChandigarh was built to replace Lahore after Partition; however, it became a place known for its alienation for a long time.\u201d
\nThe alienation that Dutt mentioned is well documented in the book and how the city is moving away from it. \u201cIncreasingly, houses in Chandigarh have started to gain their own character, subtracting the alienation, and adding elements that define the modern urban India of today, not the imagined city that Corbusier had made,\u201d writes Chhabra in one of the columns.
\nDutt asked him how he chooses his topics and he cited the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, and \u201cthe sound of the deadline passing by\u201d as motivation. He then added that he tries to write about current affairs but by linking them to a larger picture and human emotion.
\nThe book is divided into six parts, one of which happens to be \u2018The Pak Love.\u2019 When asked about it, Chhabra said, \u201cLook, if half of Punjab was not on the other side, there would have been no city called Chandigarh.\u201d
\nThe book has come up as a new genre, said Dutt. \u201cIt offers you more than Chandigarh\u2019s architecture and how it is to be managed. It is a deep insight, offering to tell you beyond what is visible.\u201d
\nDutt asked him about why he plays the small town boy from Abohar, which he is, even when he is now part of the city’s cultural circles, to which I replied: \u201cThat gives me the liberty to get away with saying things. I am part of the local circles, yet I am an observer. That’s a great place to be in, if you want to write about it!\u201d
\nVinayak described Chhabra as a \u201ctraveler turned into a chronicler\u201d whose curiosity has turned \u201cthe mundane into the magical\u201d. \u201cHis writing tells that Chandigarh has come of age in a tone which is soft and subtle. The book shows a Chandigarh that I never knew,\u201d said Vinayak.
\nHe mentioned a chapter titled ‘A lungful of petrichor’, which talks about a rainy evening spent stuck in a market corridor with rickshaw-wallahs who are as much a part of this city as anyone else. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of writing that was missing about Chandigarh. Well, not anymore,\u201d said Dutt.
\nThe book is published by Unistar Books, and is at leading bookstores and online on Amazon and other sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"