Conservation of Stepwell at Bapughat

Humming of a pleasant voice from Jharokha added to the silence of dawn in 300 year old stepwell at Bapughat (Hyderabad) conserved by Akarmaa Designs. As the rains gently showered its blessings, we slowly settled in various levels. The strumming of the veena rhythmed with the splitter platter of the rain drops, as memories of ‘la la laa..la la laa’ , echoed from deep inside the well.

Few years ago when we were researching on the traditional water system of Melukote, ‘Aaj bhi khare hain talab’ was one book whose name we often came across. But the author of the book ‘Anupam Mishra’ was no more and there was not much information available about him except for a Tedx video. The book was later translated and published in English and Tamil by ‘Thannaram Publications’. The search to know about Anupam ji kept growing every year but there was nothing greatly available online.The translated copies of the book along with calendar was sent to ‘Gandhi Peace Foundation’, where Anupam ji served for many decades. Few months later in an ‘yellow post card’ we recieve a mail which reads ‘ I loved the books. Its aesthetics are so well taken care of and that my father would have loved it’. That was an unexpected blessing in a post card come all the way from New Delhi, penned by Anupam Mishra’s son ‘Shubham Mishra’. This water which has been consistently giving every single day, for the past three centuries was invoked in the presence of Shubham Mishra.

‘ My father used to love writing post cards. He was not used to email and other things. Most of his time was spent in replying to letters from readers of ‘Gandhi Marg’ for which he served as the editor. He was always a ‘father’ first to me. We never went to vacations as such, but we used to join him along to Himalayas or Rajasthan and that became gave us an extended family. Anupam’s short form was ‘pampam’..I always addressed him as that and never addressed as papa or daddy. He was not greatly for formal education and in terms of his work one thing I learnt was, he was always curious and there was always this one thing constant in all of his works….’Anandh'”

The above words of Shubham Mishra resonated the colonnades of stepwell and people present. Noel Gorky’s portrait of Anupam Mishra amidst natural habitat, re-ensured Mishra’s presence amongst all of us. Sacred waters from 5000 year old well of Zamzam was added to the renewed waters of this stepwell, as a symbolic representation seeking for longevity of life in the well. The entire process of conservation was carried for 282 days with 40 craftspeople involved along with team of architects and engineers from Akarmaa Designs.

The conservation is a collective effort towards re-establishing the connection between people and the historical water systems, this being a pioneer in state of Telangana. Fourteen months ago, as the clouds showered generously we walked in the upper level corridors, imagining the levels covered in water beneath…As we were walking around the subterranean structure, hiding in one corner was a turtle who missed going back to the bottom levels along with the settling waters.As we guided the turtle to find her way, she swam into the waters with a sense of tadapna, A feeling that we could strongly empathise with, for our research on traditional water systems for over a decade had come to realisation into conservation on ground through the Stepwell at Bapughat. As we began with physical documentation of the stepwell, everyday there was something new which unfolded. There was a conjuncture drawing made on the possibility on how the steps leading to the well, could have been.

From the conscious spreading of the accumulated silt from desilting , preservation of the unearthed materials, testing of the lime plaster and water, multiple discussions and considerations of the stakeholders, working with varied craftsperson with intuitive wisdom ; in the process all the academical debates on ‘values and meanings’ suddenly had a different dimension altogether. After more than an year of constantly listening to the water of the stepwell, then the mother frog and her baby came back to habituate the well, enticing life.As we celebrate our endeavor to holistically revive this stepwell, enormous and varied response received for ‘Kua ek hai’ – call for creative expressions, made a difference to 300 year old history of the restored stepwell at Bapughat. The exhibition would not have been possible to be put together without the group efforts of people from ‘Niyathi’. This also marked the coming together of various batches of ‘Niyathi commune’.

It was festive at Akarmaa Studio in Hyderabad with more than fifty people working parallely, in their carved out niches assembling different pieces of the puzzle. “Aru~Uru” is a collective narrative exhibition of expressions towards water and heritage, evoking the transcendence of the formless contained within a form. The expressions were varied in nature from a group orchestrated live chorus performance to art by school children. The varied visual expressions were composed into panels and exchanged amongst artist by end of the exhibition. There were two physical scaled models, both unique in its own nature of materials and expressions. While the see-through acrylic model gave a glimpse of subterranean life, the other model had a poetry ensembled in clay. Few of the artist who had made this possible were felicitated by people from ‘Cuckoo Forest School’.

As a tribute to the traditional wisdom and indigenous knowledge of all the people who have created and managed such numerous water harvesting structures; this exhibition is designed and organised as ‘copyleft’ by Akarmaa and supported by the prayer of thoughts of Niyathi Commune from Cuckoo Forest School.’Aru~Uru’ is dedicated to Leonardo Munn and Anupam Mishra, pioneers in the field of water conservation. This is designed as a ‘travelling exhibition’ which will take place in different institutions and public spaces, as a means of spreading awareness about traditional water systems in the city of Hyderabad. The travelling exhibition started its narrative journey from the premises of Mahatma Gandhi Digital Museum.

Virtual Exhibition at
tiny.cc/aruuru

IT Minister, KT Rama Rao formally inaugurated the restored stepwell. The inaugural function was also attended by Hyderabad Mayor Gadwal Vijayalaxmi, Principal Secretary MA&UD, Arvind Kumar, MLA Kausar Mohiuddin, historian Dr.Mohammed Safiullah, Dr.Haseeb Jaferi from ‘Sufi trails’ and other eminent personalities, accompanied by Sufi music by Warsi Brothers.Few years ago there was a song that an entire auditorium of more than 500 people sang together, clapping their hands in unison.After a search for few months we discovered the song. From that time on, it has been a dream to recreate that experience. And the dream manifested in the stepwell as the concluding musical note with ‘Oh Re Taal Mile’.The following day the stepwell was transformed into an active space of expressions and reflections with the participation of students from Aurora Design Academy and Institute. Theatre workshop was conducted by RK Shenoy of Dramatist Anonymous and photography workshop by Kausik Srestaluri of 1.6 frames, co-hosted by Akshitha Patlolla.

The conservation of the stepwell and the exhibition by Akarmaa Designs, has been made possible by the selfless efforts and sacrifice of many unknown people. We express our gratitude

to water for gracefully sharing and receiving consistently everyday for the past three hundred years…..
to our mentors who have shared their wisdom and instilled the confidence required….
to Gandipet Welfare Society for having initiated this process…
to Hyderabad Design Forum for having initiated the process of documenting stepwells across Telangana…
to The Rainwater Project for their support with desilting process….
to the turtles and the fishes to have trusted us with their lives….
to Cuckoo Movement for Children for having supported us through the journey…
to MotherWay for the traditional palm jaggery sweets
to Hashtag Outlines for the handmade notebooks
to Nurpu for the fabric of the notebook covers
to Gada Balu for the cloth bags
to Radha and Soundarya Seraphina for musical invocation
to Subham Mishra for his presence
to Arun, Siva, Gopal and team of craftspeople for their consistent efforts
to Natasha kaithan for the technical support
to Sai Teja and Srikanth for the turtle installation inside the well
to Praveen sir and Aurora Design for institutional support
to INTACH Hyderabad and Visalakshi mam for guidance
to Dr.Purnima and Keerthana for the timely help

to Ayyalu R. Kumaran , Gokul, Vimal, Saran, jothi, Angamuthu, Vamsi,Manikandan, Kausik Srestaluri, Mohan Tanisk and all others who captured the aesthetics of the event

to Manaswitha. Sahana, Lokesh, Aparna, Janani, Rithika, Juhi Bafna, Gowtham, Bhargavi, Sakthi, Sanjay Borra, Priyamvadha, team of ‘an another studio’, ‘Outlines Hashtag’ and all the artists for their contribution to ‘Aru~Uru’

to niyathi commune for everything that they are and will be to the team of architects at Akarmaa for all the sacrifices made in the process ~ Aathirai SK, Akshitha Patlolla, SriRaj Tumuluri, Mirra Kannan, Arjun Govind, Sagar krishnamurthy, Muneeb Ur Rahman, Akshaya Ramakrishnan, Kausik Srestaluri, Soundarya Arumugam, Theshinyaa Bullandy, Sree Chermisha, Moftika, Tulasi, Hafeez, Amogh and you.

We are indebted to all the people from past 300 years, who have been part of the process.

Kuan Ek Hai
Paani Bharein Anek
Bhaande Hi Mein Bhed Hai
Paani Sab Mein Ek

We would love to hear from you.
akarmaafoundation@gmail.com
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