Barely two-and-a-half hours away from Pune, near Baramati, is the marvellous step well of Loni Bhapkar whose sculptures amazed Pune-based artist Rashmi Ghosh. “There is a beautiful Mallikarjun temple there and, though, it is broken, I managed to go inside with a priest,” she says. Ghosh has visited step wells across Maharashtra , from the 18th century Baramotichi Vihir in Satara to Gumtachi Vihir Stepwell in a private property in Talegaon Dhabad, to several in Gujarat, Delhi and Rajasthan , among others.
Now, Ghosh is documenting the step wells through art. An exhibition, Mapping Stepwells: A Visual Narrative, to be held at Monalisa Kalagram in Koregaon Park will showcase her large-sized paintings, medium-sized charcoals and photographs, among others, themed around stepwells. Advertisement “I found turtles swimming at the Loni Bhapkar stepwell.
The images of turtle on the floor are found in all Ganesha and Shiva temples all across Maharashtra representing the incarnation of Vishnu and detachment from worldly life in spiritual seekers. Hence, I have used the icon of the turtle in my artwork,” she says. A chartered accountant, Ghosh was always learning an art form over weekends.
Among her teachers were Pune -based Milind Mullick. It was during Covid that Ghosh started making artwork full-time, which would lead to her present subject of stepwells. Known as baoli bavadi bahuli or vav in different parts of India, step wells are ancient water storage structures once vital t.
