The Run of the Lake

‘‘GOD, it’s so crowded,’’ Gul Panag, the dimpled beauty queen, lets a little frown cloud her brow as she scans the usually-serene Sukhna Lake overflowing with Sunday revellers. It’s not the Sukhna she used to come to with her grandparents every summer. ‘‘As a child, it used to be my playground,’’ she says. Later, it became her fitness trail. ‘‘I would jog down here from my Sector 11 house.’’ Things have changed. You know that when a stranger asks: ‘‘Are you Gul Panag?’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ she says, without breaking her stride. Meanwhile, silhouetted against the majestic Shivaliks, the Sukhna turns golden, prompting Gul to sigh: ‘‘I wish Chandigarhians wouldn’t use it as a mere hangout.’’

There are other things she wishes for the city that is home to her ideal man, her grandpa Col Shamsher Singh; things like more jobs, more hot spots. Chandigarh, she tells you, was her dream city when she was growing up. The lustre wore off with time. But not quite, for it’s here that she would like to buy a house. This despite the fact she can’t stand the ‘‘Chandigarh school of thought’’ laced with conservatism, the one that obliterates the ‘armed forces’ label she sports. ‘‘I am 120 per cent what I am because of my upbringing in the Army,’’ Gul declares, telling you how she wouldn’t have been a state-level swimmer, a show-level rider without the OG environs.