I have been off-route for an hour already. Driving on a dirt road in the Rajasthan state in North India. My destination is Chand Baori, in the village of Abhaneri, a spooky 8th-century summer palace for ancient kings. The main attraction of this old building is the stunning central step well, which has served of inspirations of tales and movies, one of the deepest in India. It is an interesting scenery that I see from the car window on my way there: the faces, the fields, the little dusty temples of Ganesha. Upon arriving to my finish line I was about to learn more.

The old stone treasure was built to last. It looked as strong as a mountain, yet the feeling was more of something ethereal and mystical. There it was, the giant step well surrounded by stone carvings of Hindu gods on black stone. I couldn’t avoid imagining watching the night sky on a 8th century evening over a pitch black giant water mirror. It was how deep it looked what gave me goosebumps. Our local guide says: “It’s 20 meter deep down, sir”, which sounded utterly wrong to my ears. “I don’t think so”, I said with a smile. He seemed to take it very personal. He looked at me in the eye and starter reciting the technical details of the monument: how many stages, how many steps per stage and how tall each step. “I believe you”, I said, again with a smirk, and concluded: “I think we will continue on our own from here” before paying his fee.

As we continued the sighting, I got hypnotised. It had an ancient vibe, though from another world; its old inhabitants felt alien to me. Very mysterious space. Upon finally leaving the place, we faced the man standing just by the runway, with his eyes piercing mine and a still face standing just next to a little monolith. “It is scripted here, sir” he said indicating the place of the surface where the 20m where carved. “I believed you the first time, my friend”. Finally he could live in peace.

He hadn’t forgotten, it was written in stone, literally, in his head. If it is written in stone it must be true. It can’t be changed, and if you try to change it, you will destroy the stone. You see? I had being enchanted by the place, the step well certainly didn’t really looked 20 m deep to me; who cares what it says in the stone? I definitely don’t. I don’t want to experience what the stone says, I want to live the moment of being there and whatever is written in the stone is not going to change how I felt about the place. So why does he care? I realise now that he maybe never will experience the same as I did anymore, maybe when his father took him there for the first time, up to when he took him next to read the stone.