Water attained paramount importance in the undulating plains of North Gujarat due to its semi-arid climatic conditions. On account of this, the collection, preservation and use of water became one of the defining characteristics to trace human settlements in the region. From the smallest village to the largest city, one finds a consistent pattern in the relationship between depressions of land where water gets collected to form small lakes (talav) or ponds (talavadi) and the higher ground or mound (tekro) that is inhabited by people. This relationship between water and settlement has consistently dictated the organization and character of the built form. Often, the highest point of the mound is occupied by a temple that marks the centre of the settlement while the streets snake along the flow of water to drain it out from high ground into surrounding agricultural areas supporting the settlement. These manmade lines of the street connect with the natural flow and mark the movement of people and water through the landscape.
Characteristically, the talavadi adjacent to the settlement is located outside it for reasons of health and hygiene. Also, this stagnant surface water is associated with deities and kept outside the settlement alluding to religious and symbolic reasons. One such reason is that the last rites of deceased individuals were carried out at the cremation areas placed on the edges of such water bodies. Though essential for agriculture, animal husbandry, animal rearing and washing clothes; this water was not considered fit for drinking. Drinking water, instead, was obtained from a ground water source like a dug well, or from a stepwell as documented.
Such stepwells were invariably positioned between the settlement and the talav. Observations show that wherever the talav still holds water, the well too is alive and where the talav has been filled in or its sources blocked, the well has dried out. This points to an implicit relationship between surface water of talavadis and ground water of stepwells. In terms of use, one might conjecture that, for the sake of purity and hygiene encoded in social practice, the locals consumed water that percolated and got filtered by the layers of the earth before it was extracted from stepwells.
A strong pattern and proximity can be observed in the location of stepwells suggesting that they were intentionally built along historical trade routes prevalent in the region. Subsequently, these stepwells which also served as resting places for merchant caravans became magnets for life and incentivized the formation of settlements around them. At the same time, they acted as markers of an underground aquifer as their source was a hidden water table. The talav and stepwells became central pillars essential to this settlement pattern and bound them to the surface and depth of the earth.
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- Stepwells Of Ahmedabad - exhibition at Yale Architecture. Ahmedabad: Anthill Design, 2018.