Nek Chand gave life to stones

Chandigarh: "He found treasure in waste; carved out the desirable from the discarded and built a microcosm of richness out of leftover."

"His garden, built from the debris of refuse, has dancing girls made of broken bangles and men out of broken sanitary pieces."

"And as silently as he started, Nek Chand departed after making the stones come alive."

These were the reactions of some of fans and admirers on the social media about the down-to-earth 90-year-old man who created a fairyland, known globally the Rock Garden.

Nek Chand died here at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on early Friday following cardiac arrest, his family members said. He will be cremated here on Saturday.

"Many persons would have found him crazy when he collected waste materials from far and wide and worked on his dream project to build a unique garden," said A.J. Philip, a former senior associate editor of Chandigarh-based English daily The Tribune.

"Once, while going for a walk at Istanbul in Turkey, I suddenly came across a small Rock Garden. There, too, waste materials were used to create something out of nothing.

"I wanted to tell Nek Chand how happy I felt when I saw the imitation of the Rock Garden in faraway Istanbul. Alas, that was not to be, as we could not meet afterwards," Philip wrote on his Facebook page.

Saluting Nek Chand, noted writer-cum-journalist Nirupama Dutt described Rock Garden as an "unplanned creative outburst against the very planned and regimented city of Chandigarh".

Born on December 15, 1924, and brought up in a village in Gurdaspur under Shakargarh tehsil (now in Pakistan), Nek Chand migrated to Chandigarh in 1947.

Eminent theatre personality and TV filmmaker Gurcharan Singh Chani said Nek Chand's admirers would never miss him in his "fabled garden".

"You can't go anywhere. You are here, everywhere in your fabled garden, in every stone, in every sculpture, in narrow pathways, in grand spaces, in swings....," he added. Nek Chand's world of fantasy, Rock Garden, has put the 'City Beautiful' on the world tourist map. "Measured by its human and economic impact, your work is an outstanding testimony of the difference a single man can make when he lives his dream," says a letter written by the Switzerland-based Museum Lucienne Peiry to Nek Chand, who often described the Rock Garden as a kingdom of gods and goddesses.

The Rock Garden explores a different side of human artistry. Thousands of animal and humanoid figures made out of multicoloured useless stones, industrial and urban waste and other throwaways is the main attraction of his unique creation.

The garden houses sculptures made by using a variety of different discarded waste materials like frames, mudguards, forks, handle bars, metal wires, play marbles, porcelain, auto parts, broken bangles etc.