Delhiwale: Shade, silence, sakoon

Delhi's Palika Bazar, an underground market, once served as a baoli, offering cool refuge from summer heat, now a relic of history with few remaining.

This is in Delhi’s heart. The stairs go down, under the ground, here in Connaught Place. Beneath—all is thanda, cool.

Centuries ago, baolis used to be the city’s summertime hang-outs. Today, they are no longer an element of Delhi’s daily life, existing merely as objects of historical curiosity. (HT Photo)

It must be a baoli. One of those old stone wells with a stone staircase. The staircase descends deep towards the source of underground water, discreetly camouflaging the earth from the sky, keeping the interiors cool from the sweltering exterior.

It is actually Palika Bazar. The underground market dates back to a time when Delhi had no shopping mall, and it was the city’s sole freely accessible public place that happened to be centrally air-conditioned. There, the Delhiwale—shopping types or not—would find solace and sakoon from the heatwave.

Indeed, centuries ago, baolis used to be the city’s summertime hang-outs. Today, they are no longer an element of Delhi’s daily life, existing merely as objects of historical curiosity. Some baolis, though, are grander than others. A formal stepwell has stone steps punctuated with pavilions, niches, chambers, and corridors. In the old days, during the bellicose summer months, heat-oppressed citizens would retreat into the lower levels of such an extensive stepwell, hibernating for a few hours in the darkened depths of the baoli, close to the well’s depleted water. There, they would be safe from the assaults of prickly sunshine, their weary bodies soothed in silence and shade. As the summer would grow intense, the baoli’s water would further deplete. The daytime exiles would then withdraw to the bottommost steps, striving to be close to the breeze hovering over the well water. It is said that the citizens of that long-ago era would tend to resort to the baoli closest to home, and spend their afternoons taking naps, smoking hookah, and playing chauser/pacheesi.

While summertime heat is universal, baolis are exclusively India’s creative invention. Almost 3,000 of them were constructed between the seventh and mid-19th centuries. Most came up in the dry hotter parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Truth be told, those baolis are far more lavish than the ones we have in Delhi. That said, Delhi had more than 100 baolis as late as 100 years ago. Most caved in or dried up due to the declining water table. Now, the city is left with fewer than 20 baolis. Over the course of summer, this page will try to visit all accessible baolis.

Meanwhile, you may like to view an ongoing exhibition at the Central Atrium in India Habitat Centre. Shot by American lensman Claudio Cambon, the 26 photos of ‘To Reach the Source: Stepwells of India’ show the baolis of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh Madhya Pradesh… but not of Delhi. No worries. See the photo above. That’s a Dilli baoli.