Photographer unveils India's forgotten maze-like stepwells

Journalist Victoria Lautman has been trying to capture the beauty of a disregarded feature of Indian architectural history: the stepwell for the past four years. Her obsession of discovering stepwells had increased over the years as she discovered more than 120 stepwells in the country.

From between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE until the time of the British Raj rule in the 19th century, stepwells in India serve as a year-round water resource in a place where drought and heavy rains are markedly known. The large, deep wells in which water may be reached by descending a couple of steps. The wells' existence dated as far as AD 600 and these astonishing architectural accomplishments have been long forgotten, up until today.

Over the past four years of her exploration, the journalist has discovered over 120 stepwells in India. "In its heyday there were around 3,000 stepwells throughout India. Now, there are about 1,000 left," she claimed. Aside that it's visually stunning, it's also beautiful, grand, and very historically important, although the world has not yet known its existence.

She continued by explaining how to experience the wells, "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."

As public sites, the stepwells were more than just reservoirs, possessing a breadth of secondary identities: temples, symbols of state power, emblems of private wealth. Each has a unique history. Lautman shared the story of Rani ki Vav by stating, "It was built by Queen Udayamati in the mid 11th century (the date varies depending on the source) in memory of her departed husband." She continued by saying, "It was built too close to a now-evaporated river that changed course just enough to cause Rani ki Vav to sit up and collapse just before completion. When the British saw it about eight centuries later it was just a dirt depression in the ground with some stunted columns sticking out of it."

But when people would try to get into the details of the stepwells' history, no one would have guessed what was there until excavations started. It allegedly even matched up with the discovery of Troy. One of the stepwells, Rani ki Vav was finally granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status just last year.

And now, what Lautman hopes for is that the recognition of Rani ki Vav  would also lead to the architectural restoration of more wells in India. The photographer wished, "Rehabilitating stepwells to harvest and preserve water makes a lot of sense; after all, they worked very efficiently for over a thousand years. But by rehabilitating - preserving, conserving, 'reawakening' the wells - more locals and tourists."

Meanwhile, the Indian government is trying their best to revive and preserve the damaged and unutilized stepwells. They see its significance as a solution for the water crises all over the country. And once people would become aware of their existence, then the future of the country would be safe and sound.