- Journalist Victoria Lautman has explored up to 120 sites featuring the mysterious and marvellous stepwells
- The magnificent underground structures were ancient forms of water storage, respite from the heat and temples
- Built from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, stepwells vary greatly from region to region
- Awareness of stepwells was booted when UNESCO named Rani ki Vav in Patan a World Heritage Sites
Victoria
Lautman is enamoured by India's stepwells - the subterranean
masterpieces that served first as a vital means to access and store
water between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD but remain architectural
wonders to this day.
The
Chicago journalist has spent four years exploring up to 120 sites and
says her 'smouldering obsession' with the impressive and varied
underground structures stems from their mystery, beauty and history.
'They
are fascinating on so many levels it's hard to count. First and
foremost, they are just so visually stunning - beautiful, grand,
mysterious, and historically important while also being nearly unknown,'
Lautman told MailOnline.
The Chand Baori stepwell is one of Rajasthan's most impressive and important landmarks, said to built between 800 and 900AD
Chicago
journalist Victoria Lautman has spent 30 year bewildered by India's
stepwells such as Indaravali in Fatehpur Sikri (left) and Ujala Baoli
the Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh(right) - stepwells take on many
shapes but serves the same purpose of providing access to valuable water
This helical stepwell with its spiral
staircase is found in the city of Champaran, which was nicknamed 'city
of thousand wells' and is in the Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological
Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Gujarat, India
'I
love that they subvert our expectations of architecture as something we
look up at. Who looks down to see a building? But that's how to access
the stepwells, by looking down into them, walking down into them, and
penetrating the earth.
'The
fact that they have so little - if any - presence above ground is also
marvellous. You can be nearly at the edge of some of these and have no
idea.
'Some
have a very low wall. But when you look over the wall, the ground opens
up and plunges perhaps six storeys. It's disorienting, subversive,
interesting and gorgeous at the same time. That's about perfect to me.'
Lautman
said she saw her first stepwell 30 years ago on her first journey to
India and says they 'could easily have been the most important civic
monuments of their day'.
Stepwells
have fallen out of fashion and dried up due to centuries of water
mismanagement and increased, and largely unregulated, bore wells.
Now
they serve primarily as slowly crumbling reminders of the past, but a
current water crisis in India is seeing them come back into
consideration.
'Today,
they have little importance in comparison to their former stature but
they're certainly significant monuments that can't help but enrich the
history of India, of architecture, of art and engineering,' Lautman
said.
'Even
civic and religious history are represented. Interestingly, at the
moment they're being reassessed thanks to India's deepening water
crisis: stepwells were efficient, beautiful water harvesting systems in
use for over a millennium.
'The
decision to de-silt and then recharge certain stepwells - bringing
groundwater back into them - turns them back to their former use
hundreds of years ago. That would be a wonderful way to preserve them.'
Lautman says she has a 'smouldering obsession' with stepwells, such as Khamba in Gwalior and Navlakhi Vav in Baroda
Mukundpura Baoli, Narnaul, is yet another of the impressive and varied underground structures that fascinate Lautman
Lautman
says stepwells 'are fascinating on so many levels it's hard to count.
First and foremost, they are just so visually stunning - beautiful,
grand, mysterious, and historically important while also being nearly
unknown'
There are no historical records to
prove who built Agrasen ki Baoli in New Delhi, the 60m-long and 15m-wide
historical stepwell is designated a protected monument by the
Archaeological Survey of India
Rani ki Vav in Patan (left) was in June last year recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; Rajon Ki Baoli (right)
While
not set to rival the Pyramids or India's Taj Mahal as world-renowned
wonders, recent acknowledgement of their importance and impressiveness -
the sculpture-encrusted Rani ki Vav in Patan, Gujarat, being declared a
UNESCO World Heritage Sites - gives their fan significant hope of
survival.
'The
recognition for the magnificent, enormous, sculpture-encrusted Rani ki
Vav in Patan can't help but raise the profile of stepwells
internationally,' Lautman said.
Evolving
from sandy holes filled with water into elaborate structures, stepwells
were once the centre piece of daily life, especially in baron parts of
the country in which water was their most precious commodity. They also
provided respite from the heat with their layers significantly cooler
than outside.
'They
were active, social gathering places - women are still the
water-gatherers, and it would have been much more fun to spend time in
the stepwell with your friends than waiting in line at the village tap,'
says Lautman.
Other
stepwells served as subterranean temples for rituals and prayers, but
concrete evidence about the use and history of stepwells is scarce.
'There's
a lot of guesswork, and a lot of mythology surrounding certain ones. I
can pass along the fact that Kirit Mankodi, the foremost authority on
the newly-minted UNESCO site, Rani ki Vav, estimates that it took 15 to
20 years to build,' Lautman said. 'That one is many times the size and
unimaginably more ornate than any other. Compared to that, perhaps it
would be several years to construct.'
Unlike many of the mysterious
stepwells, a Sanskrit inscription at Dada Hari ni Vav tells us this
seven-storey structure was 1500AD
Raja Bir Singh Dev in Serol (left) and the stepwell near Neemrana Fort-Palace (right) are slowly crumbling reminders of the past
Lautman hopes to raise the profile of stepwells, such as Takht Baoli, Narnaul (left) and Ambapur (right), internationally
Lautman's
exploration has been aided significantly by the scholarly works of
Jutta Jain-Neubauer, Julia Hegewald, and Morna Livingston on stepwells,
but their expertise is rare and even locals aren't entirely clued up on
their potentially major attractions.
'I
ask everyone I meet, all over India, if they've heard about a stepwell
somewhere,' she said. 'It doesn't matter if they're an architect,
professor or tea-wallah in a village market - actually, those fellows
are usually the best to talk to -eventually, someone knows something and
can point me in the general direction.'
'Finding
one generally involves hours of driving around in circles, stopping to
ask at least six locals, backtracking and stumbling around. But then
there can be treasure.'
Lautman's
expeditions have taken between a few days and a week, usually just with
a driver, but last year she enlisted the help of a guide 'because my
execrable Hindi was useless and probably just confused everyone.'
'I
feel I've scored, big-time, when the guide and driver get out of the
car and start taking pictures with their cell-phones. After all, this is
their history, not mine,' she said.
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