There is a story about the over 700-year-old Nizamuddin Baoli built by Delhi’s most famous saint. It’s said that Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya began the baoli’s (stepwell) construction by digging the earth with his own hands and uttering the blessing, ‘He who drinks one drop of it should have no fear of the fire of hell.’
There are other fantastical tales, too, associated with the baoli. It is said that when sultan Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq of Delhi (1320-1325) started constructing the massive Tughlaqabad Fort, he prohibited all other construction in the city. But workers would still come to build the baoli after sunset. The sultan, while on his way back from a visit to Bengal, sent Auliya a message to leave the city. The saint wrote back: “Delhi is still far away.” The sultan died in an accident on the outskirts of Delhi. The fact that the sultan’s nephew — who erected the pandal that fell and killed him — was a disciple of the saint, is lesser known but pertinent.
Why was Hazrat Nizamuddin ready to foment a revolution to build a water reservoir that he would never enjoy himself? Possibly for the same reason that the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), founded and chaired by His Highness the Aga Khan, has been working on restoring water bodies, including eight baolis, in Delhi and Hyderabad. Maybe they both understood that being around blue and green spaces has tremendous physical and mental benefits for humans. (Studies in the Netherlands and Japan have shown that people with easy access to such spaces boasted better health, lower stress levels, and lower mortality rates.)
