Toorji Ka Jhalra: the stepwell that was buried, then found

Why a desert city digs down

Marwar's water is underground. A stepwell is the desert's answer: a shaft to the water table, wrapped in stairs so that people could reach the water as it rose and fell through the year, and walls thick enough to keep the cool in. They were also social rooms — the one place women gathered daily outside the home — which is part of why queens built them. Toorji's is named for the queen who had it dug; "jhalra" is the local word for a well with steps on several sides, as against the long single flight of a bawri.

Lost, then found

When piped water came, the stepwells lost their purpose and became pits for rubbish. Toorji's disappeared under silt and refuse so completely that the neighbourhood had forgotten the water was there. Its clearing in the 2010s — led by the people restoring the lane around it — brought out the geometry you see now: pink-and-gold sandstone steps descending in interlocking triangles to a pool that still fills from the aquifer. The cafés followed, and Stepwell Square became the old city's most photographed corner.

How to see it, and how to shoot it

Go at dawn. The light falls straight down the axis, the water is glassy, and you have it to yourself; by nine the steps are a terrace for coffee and the stillness is gone. Stand at the top step, centred on the axis, and let the steps stack down to the water — Shot № 4 of the Jodhpur Shot List. On hot afternoons local boys dive from the walls; it is their well, and has been for nearly three centuries. Five minutes' walk from the clock tower.

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