A Ballad For The Baolis

Wells, step wells, artificial ponds, and large man-made lakes are structures I have always found in the vicinity of abandoned monuments. All other criteria were immaterial, and maybe even foolish, if there didn’t exist a source of water to sustain them. If a source didn’t exist, it was invented. From temples to once grand palaces and solid fortresses, none were even imagined without the precious liquid flowing, and often stored in them. 

In an age where the turn of a tap is expected to drip water obediently, the sheer number of people  who do not have access to clean and potable drinking water will come as a rude shock to many. The fetching of water from many miles is an unfortunate reality still, for far too many people. 

With rapid advancements through the ages, a wizardry in predicting weather and the means to storing, and of late, transporting the invaluable resource over vast distances; the awe and respect towards this life-impacting essential has perhaps been replaced by steadily growing complacency. 

It is a complacency that may hit us hard if the recent crisis for fresh water in South Africa is any yardstick to estimate the future course of humanity’s fate. While the Clean Ganga camping has long been overdue, The ‘Rally for Rivers’ cry, followed by Cauvery Calling by Sadhguru could not have come at a more critical time. 

And neither could there have been a better time for Vikramjit Singh Rooprai (@DelhiHeritage) to excavate, explore, and compile together his list of Top 10 Baolis in the country’s capital. Delhi Heritage: Top 10 Baolis (Niyogi Books) is a fantastic way to get introduced to the remarkably resourceful and technologically advanced science of water collection, preservation, and conservation in times we largely regard as backward to our present modern ways. With pictures and illustrations of wells long left for dead, Vikramjit brings to life the Delhi’s of the past, and I am glad that the effort is breathing back the life of awareness for baolis. 

The social life of Delhi would once have revolved around these wells, whereas they now barely exist at the periphery of the rotund lives of Delhiites. While brooding at their state and marvelling at the ingenuity of having created such splendid, and often ingeniously conceptualised structures which are so simply, yet comprehensively detailed by Vikramjit, it is hard not to despair at the loss of status that water has undergone in this country.

For a culture that revers rivers, that blesses homes with holy water, and worships the mighty Varun in a Kalash; for a tradition that hails regents who make lakes and reservoirs, and grants stately titles of grandeur to citizens who spend their fortunes in making public water drinking facilities, the state of the Baolis of Delhi and across the country is shocking as it is foolhardy. 

From having played tag with globalisation, we are gravitating back towards the local - from a time of having products and services standardised, to realising the novelty and uniqueness of the  indigenous. 

Similarly, maybe one day we will evolve from relying on bottled water, and reservoirs many miles away, to creating, nurturing, and harnessing that same commodity for which humankind is exploring distant planets and moons...