The Thar is a small but unforgiving desert. Small for the dimensions of the main wastelands of the world, but it is about 200,000 square kilometers (more or less the same area as Belarus) that covers the westernmost part of India and extends towards Pakistan.
The rains are not rare in the Thar, they can happen while the rest of the country is flooding everything, during the monsoon. There is torrential rainfall and there are even hailstorms. For a few days, the scorched sands become carpets of flowers. But it is usually a short mirage. Rajasthan is an arid land where water is a scarce commodity.
More than a thousand years ago, between the 8th and 9th centuries, King Chand Raja ordered the construction of a reservoir that would collect water from seasonal rains and was fed from a well that came from the deep Rajasthani aquifer. Thousands of people worked on the site, many of whom died from exhaustion and in "work accidents", basically due to falls.
And it is that the well must be seen to understand how risky the company is. It sticks to a fairly well-known structure in India, called the Chand Baori. The more water was needed for the field tasks, the deeper it had to be. So the one that was carved in Abhaneri is the largest in the country and one of the deepest in the world.
The Chand Baori is governed by a very precise geometric pattern. It is more than 20 meters from the highest point to the remote areas where the water flows. The architecture is based on “catwalks” that are linked by a system of twin stairways. As the well had to be used by dozens of people at the same time, a system had to be created so that they would not get stuck on the way, but rather – as if they were ants in an anthill – dispersed throughout the entire system of steps to take the path that was more convenient for them or that was clearer.
No wonder, then, that Abhaneri's Chand Baori has 3,500 steps that look like a Maurits Escher nightmare. One can imagine the efforts of men and women –mainly they are last, who have traditionally been in charge of providing water to the home– overcoming the steep slope with metal or clay jugs resting on their heads and trying not to lose their balance or faint in the heat which accumulates in the central hole of the complex. Total, to stock up on a liquid that fills up with duckweed and other algae due to the vivifying effect of the relentless sun of the Rajasthani desert.
The well has a rectangular enclosed courtyard. The stairs surround the water on three sides of the structure. But it is already known that in classical Indian architecture, homage to the gods was never set aside. So the fourth face of the complex has a formidable three-story temple, galleries supported by pillars and two projecting balconies that house delicate sculptures. There is no shortage of beautiful jharokhas (distinctive windows of the Rajput culture), with a roof and carved to the point of exhaustion.
The curious thing is that until a few years ago Abhaneri's Chand Baori was ignored by both travelers and Indian authorities, as the well had long since fallen into disuse. Now that it has been cleared and restored, it is very convenient to access, being sandwiched between the Delhi-Mumbai highway and the Banganga River. Abhaneri is 95 kilometers from the pink city of Jaipur, which for the slow Indian roads means a couple of hours by private vehicle and more than double by public transport.
