Stairway To History

Chicago-based journalist-photographer Victoria Lautman’s obsessive affair with stepwells or baolis started in Rajasthan. Her passion eventually found expression in her book, The Vanishing Stepwells of India.

- Arundhati Chatterjee

ALMOST THREE DECADES AGO, CHICAGO based journalist-photographer Victoria Lautman travelled to India’s Golden Triangle—Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. It was her first trip to India. She stopped a dozen times a day to drink roadside chai, and as she soaked in the intriguing history of the states she was passing through, she stumbled upon an unanticipated obsession: baolis or stepwells. The fascination grew over time and she has now authored a book on stepwells, titled The Vanishing Stepwells of India, which has been published by Merrell Publishers. “Everyone who loves India will describe the usual things— colours, people, aroma, architecture… all of these did overwhelm me in a tangible way, but something beyond all of that stayed with me. I thought I’d gotten India out of my system, but it turned out I’d never be able to. I kept going back. Rajasthan started it all,” says Lautman.

Steeped in history

In her book, Lautman documents over 120 stepwells across India and their intricate histories. A major impetus for this came in 2014, when Gujarat’s opulent baoli, Rani Ki Vav in Patan, made it to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.

Lautman vividly remembers feeling “clobbered” by the scale and grandeur of the