Sectors. Chandigarh, read room by room Open in the atlas

Sector 22 · market

Sector 22 · Shastri Market

The first neighbourhood the new capital actually moved into, and home to one of its oldest budget bazaars.

Where it sits in the city
Our family’s places are here. Gurbaksh Dhaba and Nagpal Veg Foods. Our softy was the one in 22, the neighbourhood one, not the famous Softy Corner everyone means in 17.Anirudh · the owner’s memory

Then & now

Then
House-building started here in the early 1950s; a working town by mid-decade while the rest of the grid was still a building site.
Who
Part of the everyday fabric under Fry and Drew. Shastri Market is named for India’s second PM.
Before
Built new, and the first sector where people actually came to live.

The OG move

This was Chandigarh’s first downtown before Sector 17 existed: by the mid-1950s it had the Kiran cinema, the Aroma hotel, a school, a hospital. Himalaya Marg is its spine; Shastri Market is the bargain hub, budget saris and salwar suits with on-the-spot tailoring, Punjabi juttis and footwear, the deliberate opposite of 17’s clean plaza.

A fact that reframes it

The world knows Chandigarh as a pristine modernist grid, but its densest, most lived-in fabric is here, because 22 filled up with government servants while the rest of the city was still under construction.

Open in the interactive atlas → Back to the map
Sources (2)
  1. First sector built/inhabited (early 1950s); the young city’s downtown (Kiran cinema, Aroma hotel)
    onefivenine.com/india/villages/Chandigarh/Chandigarh/Sector-22
  2. Shastri Market: budget fashion, juttis, footwear, on-site tailoring; Himalaya Marg the spine
    next57.com/exploring-shastri-market-chandigarh-sector-22/