Adios, City Beautiful

chandigarh: at the risk of sounding sentimental, i must say that the stay in chandigarh has been the greatest evolving period in my life. and as i prepare to bid it adieu, it comes to mind how different a city is when you visit it and when you live in it. when i shifted in, chandigarh to me meant the rock garden, sector 17 (which had a hangout place called yankee doodle), and a particular jutti shop in sector 11.when i moved in, i realised it was a bustling city where life had moved way beyond the sukhna lake and the rock garden, where yankee doodle was gone and hms stood in its place, and where sector 17 was no longer the easy, chill-out place but instead a commercial market almost at par with connaught place in delhi; where corporates were paying mindboggling sums as rent. i also realised that chandigarh had evolved into a test market of sorts; every well-known brand had the city on its launch circuit as one of the first few places to test the response. no wonder then that the city has almost every car and twowheelers at almost the same time or before it reached the metros. and banks; they were opening up like there's no tomorrow. also, the fashion scene in the city has drastically changed from non-existent to happening. the local models one saw initially have disappeared paving way for outstation models who waltz in by the morning shatabdi, strut their stuff on the ramp, and go back the next morning. boutiques in houses will no longer do and brands such as ritu kumar and sukarma are out to change styles. in branded apparel too, willsport, provogue, dockers and every other conceivable brand has a large presence. it's becoming a brand baaja in here. so for better or for worse, chandigarh is hardly an isolated city any more. it's in fact now just like any other metro, one where more and more directors, singer and brand managers are coming to seek out talent. somewhere along the line, i even became proud of the city, with it topping surveys as the best city to live in, and when i'd meet a mumbaikar here who couldn't think beyond daler mehdni while talking of punjab, i realised how hollow their judgement was. between the jindar jindas, the sukhas, the jassis, the jazzy bs, the sukhbirs, the mikas and the sheras, i began to enjoy living in a region that produced most of the punjabi music the world was rocking to. the music that everyone danced to at sangeets with a vodka down but scoffed at as downmarket while sipping coffee. that, and the rest of the hoopla that hasn't and will never change is what i'm going to miss. the geris - which i have witnessed often but never managed to figure out - the exchange of lights to tell a fellow driver that a cop is nearby with his radar gun, even the odd incidents of being caught by a waiting policeman in a bush...and then being let off without even asking for being in the 'press'. it's also the city that has given me my driving license after a two-month and many-people-long queue wait, and also a marriage certificate in two hours! the city has anomalies i will never be able to understand. but that's what makes it special. a fast-paced lifestyle peppered with complaints about it being so slow, the fact that everyone can afford big cars but complain about where to show them off, the constant 'i wish i was in delhi' refrain and then the 'but it's so polluted' reply, and of course the fact that the city has less politicians and more administrators but still manages to top the vip brat list. do i want all this to change? i don't think so. some things are best the way they are. geetika_bhandari@indiatimes.com