India’s magnificent stepwells are relics of a nuanced history

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One “baoli” has 13 storeys and 3,500 narrow steps—it prefigures M.C. Escher's “impossible objects” by centuries

Until recently that water was filthy. The tank was full of rubbish; the neighbourhood’s raw sewage flowed into it. Worse, the structure, which is more than 160 feet deep, was in an advanced state of dilapidation. One section of its walls of grey Delhi quartzite had collapsed. Other parts were bulging alarmingly—and, for the dozens of families who had built homes atop them, perilously.

The earliest of the wells date back almost 2,000 years. They were first and foremost a response to a climate in which a year’s rains fall chiefly in the four brief months of the summer monsoon, when they fall at all. The point of the staircases and side ledges is to provide permanent access to ever-fluctuating water levels—and cool shelter in the hottest months.

And, as you descend into them, what mind-boggling structures these wells are. Their early builders were capable of astonishing feats of engineering. The Chand Baori in Abhaneri, east of Jaipur , resembles an inverted ziggurat. Its 13 storeys and 3,500 narrow steps prefigure M.C. Escher’s “impossible objects” by centuries. The Panna Meena Ka Kund stepwell , also near Jaipur, is another elaborate masterpiece.

 

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