Finding a sense of belonging in Sukhna’s embrace

We moved to Chandigarh in 2001. My father had always admired this city for how it was built on order, thought, and hope. He held a proud reverence for its architect Le Corbusier and the belief that you could design a better world if you tried hard enough.

But to me, the city meant nothing. It did not hold any memories, or friends… no old lanes to get lost in here. I belonged to other skies.

After marriage to a fauji, I would visit my parents, for a few days every year for nearly two decades. Every visit felt temporary, transactional. Sometimes, I wondered if Chandigarh would ever mean anything deeper to me.

And then, life shifted in the quietest, hardest way.

Ma fell sick. And everything collapsed.

Three endless months of pain and suffering for my ma, of fear pressing onto my chest like a stone, of watching my father’s quiet strength crack at the edges, took me to Sukhna just like that one day.

Not to think. Not to feel. Just to breathe.

As the light changed upon its rippled waters, that evening, something shifted within me.

Sukhna didn’t fix anything that day, it just held me in its quiet embrace. Its waters became the only heart that could hold mine when I couldn’t carry it myself.

And somehow, in that stillness, Sukhna gave me what no street or skyline here ever could — a quiet belonging, shaped not by time or ties but born out of grace.

Soumita Khanna, Chandigarh