It was love at first sight. And it took me four years to make this dream come true,” smiles Pradeep Mahajan, a city-based photographer talking about the book, ‘Sukhna-Sublime Lake of Chandigarh’. The pictures in the book are Pradeep’s and it was an exhibition that inspired the Governor to announce the need for the first official book on Sukhna Lake. “On April 13, 2007 we had a photography exhibition held at the Lake, and exhibited here were the various moods and facets of Sukhna,” Prof Rajnish Wattas, former principal of Chandigarh College of Architecture, recalls how the book was conceptualized.

Authored by Wattas and Deepika Gandhi, a senior lecturer at CCA, Wattas says they did extensive research and spent endless hours at the lake to finalize the 170-page book, which includes 50 photographs, including 76 full-page photographs and 12 sketches.

A visual delight encompassing the facets of Sukhna, the book is divided into two sections. “The first part gives an overview of the inception of the lake; circumstances of its creation, and elements of its landscape all supported with extensive visuals, while the second is a photographic essay on the ceaseless transformation of the lake — changing with the hour, season and year,” chirps Gandhi, who says that the scope of the book has been broadened to make it more informative and reader-friendly.