A Window To Perceptive Journalism

My Lord, Happy B'day,
But Please Park Your Car Right

S P Singh

As I stood outside the Punjab and Haryana High Court's imposing building in the early summer sun on Friday, playing mind games to decode the obfuscated cabalism of Le Corbusier's Capitol plan architecture fifty years after the building was inaugurated, I   realised it required suspension of visual disbelief to understand the method in the madness.

But then Le Corbusier was very much the prima donna when India was being exposed to the esoteric arts of architecture.

Those were the days when grand visionaries (yes, I know Sunil Khilnani classified Le Corbusier as architectural megalomaniac) were trying to fit the High Court into the plan. Now of course the High Court decides who fits into the plan and who doesn't.

And then I laughed out loud, remembering Romi Khosla's narration of the days when his father was the judge at the high court and Le Corbusier thought it fit to discuss with none lesser than Jawahar Lal Nehru that judges were not parking their cars properly!

"The judges were misusing the building," Khosla was telling the Celebrating Chandigarh conclave in January 1999 as giants like William Curtis, BV Doshi, Jeet Malhotra, Jean Louis Veret listened attentively, amused.

"Corbusier completed the High Court building and the judges occupied it and the judges would park their cars in the front porch. He came one day and found oil stains on the porch. Our good Ambassador cars leave plenty behind, like the pigeons, and he was absolutely furious. He stormed into my father's court (shouting), "This is not for parking cars'," Khosla said.

The judge was calm. "Look, please understand how justice works. The judge cannot enter the courtroom from the same place that the litigants enter. Justice descends from above." Corbusier kept quiet and went directly to Nehru.

"This was very much a part of his prima donna's role. He would not discuss it further. He went straight to Nehru and he complained that the judges were misusing the building," Khosla narrated with a chuckle.

The prima donna wanted to defend each of his creation zealously. In the High Court, the secretariat-facing facade has glazed front. The judge's dais was on the inner side and judge faced the litigant against the glazing. One of the judges complained that he was unable to see the expression on the litigant's face, and so he turned the dais at right angles.

Result? Architectural blasphemy! The long court, supposed to work in a length-wise fashion, began to work across a short space. A furious Corbusier of course met Nehru.

Next time Nehru met the judge, he said, "Well, sort it out, you speak French, don't you, sort it out."

We still need to sort out many things. Of the three buildings in the Capitol Complex, the High Court is the one most faithful to the earliest impulses of design. "Its aesthetic syntax is less eye-catching than that of the Governor's Palace (never built) -- except in peripheral vision. It requires the suspension of visual disbelief,'' wrote Washington University's Vikramaditiya Prakash, son of legendary Aditya Prakash.

BV Doshi is fond of asking why Corbusier constantly drew the Himalayas which are at a great distance? Perhaps he knew that like nature's laws, which are above everything else, justice from High Court would flow unhindered, away from political intrigue and closer always to a wiser counsel.

The High Court has kept its tryst with people's aspirations. No matter where the hon'ble judges park their cars! Happy Golden Jubilee! We can always sort out the parking later.■

2005

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