Remembering Chandigarh’s beauty and order in Mississauga

I spent my teen years crisscrossing across the roads of the City Beautiful. On Dussehra evening, we would walk across the road from our home in Sector 18 to the Parade Ground in Sector 17 to watch Ravan’s effigy being set on fire, enduring the jostling crowds, only to forget about it once our teeth sank into garam garam jalebis being sold there.

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For Karwa Chauth festivities, we would go to mehndi wallahs sitting in Sector 22 market corridors, returning home with outstretched palms, dried mehndi flaking during the walk home. On Diwali, we frequented Sector 19 market to pick up earthen diyas and gharolis, and sometimes a chocolate or two from Peshawari’s. Report card days meant a hot chocolate fudge from Hot Millions in Sector 17.

My heart that was full of the city’s beauty and order has now expanded to include another city across the ocean as my second home. But when I close my eyes and think of Chandigarh, I am transported back to its beautiful, tree-lined roads, and my feet can still feel the familiar crunch of their gravel under my canvas PT shoes.

Dr Seerat Kaur Gill, Mississauga, Toronto