Chandigarh

When Punjab was divided in 1947, its capital, Lahore, went to Pakistan. Nehru wanted the replacement to be a statement — a city, as he put it, unfettered by the traditions of the past. After the first planner's partner was killed in an air crash, the commission went in 1951 to Le Corbusier, working with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and the British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. They laid out a grid of self-contained sectors, each with its own shops, school and green, and put the government at the head of it all against the Shivalik hills.

Seventy-odd years on, the plan still holds. Chandigarh is greener, cleaner and easier to cross than any Indian city its size. The Capitol Complex — High Court, Secretariat, Assembly and the Open Hand — was listed by UNESCO in 2016 as part of Le Corbusier's architectural work, and the raw concrete has weathered into something more like landscape than building.

The city's best-loved place was never in the plan. From the late 1950s a road inspector named Nek Chand began collecting the rubble of the villages cleared to make Chandigarh — broken bangles, sinks, electrical fittings, crockery — and building figures from it in a patch of forest, without permission. When officials found it in 1975 it covered several acres. Rather than bulldoze it, the city gave him a salary and a team. The Rock Garden is now a maze of walled courtyards, waterfalls and thousands of mosaic figures, and it still feels like someone's private obsession, which is its charm.

The rest of the city is Punjabi at heart, whatever the architects intended. Evenings mean the promenade at Sukhna Lake, made in 1958 by damming a seasonal stream. Food means chole bhature, rajma chawal, tandoori chicken and tall glasses of lassi, and in February the Rose Garden in Sector 16 holds a festival for its thousands of varieties.

You cannot simply wander into the Capitol Complex. Free guided tours run from the tourist centre in Sector 1 at fixed times; bring photo ID, register in advance where you can, and expect the Assembly to be closed when it is in session. The Le Corbusier Centre in Sector 19 and the Pierre Jeanneret museum in Sector 5 explain the city better than any book. Go to the Rock Garden at opening time, before the school parties. And watch Sukhna Lake from the far end of the promenade, where the hills are behind the water and the crowds thin out.

Much of Jeanneret's original teak and cane furniture has quietly disappeared to European auction houses over the years; do not buy a piece that claims to be original, however good the story. Respect the security rules around the Capitol, which is a working seat of government. And use the city's cycle tracks and sector paths — Chandigarh was built for walking, and it shows.

Look north from Sukhna Lake and the hills are right there. Kasauli is barely two hours up the road — a small cantonment of pine walks and old churches, and the easiest change of air you can make from the plains.