Life & Aging Haves and Have Nots Previous Next "Open to give, open to receive". Chandigarh has adopted Le Corbusier's motto. The symbol of the city is the open hand - but it is more open to some than to others. Chandigarh is the cleanest city in India. Unlike the situation almost everywhere else in the country, public services work well. The roadsweepers start work early in the morning. A group of men relax briefly before starting work, having slept here on the pavement. Their menial jobs as roadsweepers, rickshawmen or petty street traders do not pay enough for them to be able to afford a room. A rickshawman shows off his acrobatic skills for the photo. For him and those lke him, this three-wheeled bicycle is his only valuable possession, for which he has perhaps gone into debt for several years. In Chandigarh, poverty and wealth live side by side. On one side of the road a rickshawman, on the other chain stores. These two women live in one of the villages around Chandigarh. They are waiting for a lift so that they can go and sell their milk in town. Only a few hundred meters from Le Corbusier's clean, modern town, people are living with no drinking water while rotting rubbish piles up at the edge of the road. Sector 17, the city's nerve centre. The huge open space is the place to shop and be seen in Chandigarh. The one drawback to living there is the top floors of the concrete housing blocks. They were too exposed to the sun and have been abandoned. The university of Chandigarh takes students from all over the country. It is best known for its faculties of architecture and law and its university hospital. A "symphony in concrete": the Capitol complex, with its squares and administrative buildings, is the only area of the city to have been designed by Le Corbusier himself. The picture shows the High Court. Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4 Picture 5 Picture 6 Picture 7 Picture 8 Picture 9 Chandigarh, a middle class ghetto, where the poor manage as best they can This content was published on July 21, 2008 - 13:34 Photos: Miyuki Droz Aramaki You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us! If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.