Speaking Archaeologically™

                    The Sevasi Vav, Vadodara           Click here for our Sevasi Vav Video In all of western India, you will be able to find stepwells, from the coasts of Karnataka, to the arid lands of Gujarat and Rajasthan. And then,  are  some in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, too. They provided travellers with a place to rest, and prevailed as a place to socialize, as well as acted as a medium for storing drinking water (there is no reason to boast about the advent of social networking for you in the 21st century–the wise Yodas from the past did this). More than 200 stepwells are expected to be located in Gujarat alone today–making it very easy to picture their figures in the past. Their water storage effectiveness has helped local residents survive for hundreds of years, in the semi-arid  climate  and  seasonal fluctu...

“Issko pathaano ne banwaya tha. Usse zyada toh kuchh pata nahi.” [This (baoli) was built by the Pathans. I do not know anything more about this.] There is probably only this much that one knows about the Dwarka Baoli. The information board put up by INTACH and the State Archaeology Department also could not tell us anything more about who might have actually patronized the construction of this Baoli, than what the caretaker at the site told us. Thus, when the ancient past of this Baoli failed us, we thought it worthwhile to reconstruct its modern histories—what one would otherwise call its “afterlife.”                                        Figure I: The information board at the Baoli   Who are we? Why are we here, at the Dwarka Baoli? I do not think our “Baoli Gang” (read, Baoli girls) needs ...