The Fabulous Havelis of Shekhawati

A haveli watchman with Doug

Rajasthan - the very name conjures up visions of camels, kings and women in colourful saris. We'd spent a month in Rajasthan during our last visit in 2006, visiting the 'three jewels' - Jodhpur, Jaipur and Jaisalmer.  And we've already spent time here in this visit, returning to see our old friend Govind in Jodhpur.  And now we've come back to Jaipur to go to a little visited place that's caught my imagination: Shekhawati.

Shekhawati: I love just the sound of it’s name.  Maybe because it evokes images of sheiks.  But no, there were no sheiks here.  But there were Rajput princes – ‘sons of kings’ – and descendents of the ruling Hindu warrior classes of North India.  It was a particular clan of Rajputs – the Shekhawat Rajputs, of course – that ruled the Shekhawati area.  I see them riding (and hunting) elephants and camels, beturbaned and royally dressed in brocaded and embroidered silk jackets, worn long over tight white johjpur-style pants, their wives (I’m sure they had several) just as splendid, in colourful silk saris, and richly bejeweled, fairly dripping with heavy gold – always gold – earrings, necklaces and bracelets, inset with rubies, pearls and sapphires.  I can even smell the incense and perfumes – jasmine, rose, sandalwood and my favourite, frangipani – that permeated the rooms in their homes, and wafted after them as they strode, or ambled, through the town... .  

A grand old haveli in Fatehpur

Shekhawati: an area in northeastern Rajasthan, not far from Jaipur.  In the Thar desert, where the winters are too cold, and the summers too hot.  Where water is scarce, and life is hard.  And where the Rajputs, Marwari traders and upper-class merchants who lived here built large – indeed huge – manor houses for themselves and their extended families.  These grand old houses, called havelis (from the Arabic word ‘hawali’, meaning ‘private space’) were mostly constructed during the latter part of the 19^th century and early 20^th century. 

Haveli in Fatehpur

They were status symbols, often two or three stories high, and built with bricks, sandstone, granite, wood, and even marble, depending on the wealth of their owners.  Their imposing facades, with their sculpted balconies and archways over doors and windows, usually had only one main entrance – a large wooden door or gate, undoubtedly well guarded – leading into a series of enclosed inner courtyards or ‘chouks’. The first and smallest chouk acted as a foyer, where visitors might be received and either invited in or ushered out.  More secluded chouks were the private domain of the family.  Some were exclusively for the women, where they could go about their daily business, shielded from prying eyes.  The richer the family, the more chouks there might be. 

There are havelis in other parts of India – especially Rajasthan – and in Pakistan.  And we’d seen many on our travels.  But the havelis of Shekhawati are something special and unique.  They are adorned, inside and out, with beautiful and often fanciful frescoes, painted both inside and outside, with images of gods, goddesses, plants, animals, scenes from the British Raj, and highly imaginative images of trains and flying boats.  It’s these frescoed havelis that we’re here to see.

Remember, these were done before 1930, likely before many cars were seen in Rajasthan

We started off in the largest town in the Shekhawati region, Fatehpur.  We got there by going from Jaipur to Sikim, by train.  The lovely Sikim railway station gave us a pretty good idea of how important the havelis are to tourism in Shekhawati - its walls are adorned with haveli-style paintings.

From Sikim we caught a very crowded but to Fatehpur.  Although the town itself didn’t feel like somewhere we wanted to stay – perhaps because we didn’t like the hotel – we were impressed with our first glimpse of the fabled Shekhawati havelis.  In addition to the ones posted above - including the flying boat-car - there were a couple of others that I loved.

This one for the riot of colours and the lovely statues

And this one for the wonderfully detailed images of horses, cars and people.

Determined to leave Fatehpur, we consulted our Lonely Planet guide again, and decided the best place to be was Mandawa, and the best place in Mandawa was the Shekhawati Hotel.  Although designed with the look of a haveli in mind, the hotel was not an old haveli, and the paintings, albeit fantastic were 'new' (ie. less than 50 years old).  Still, it became our home for almost three weeks as we explored not only the havelis in Mandawa and surrounding villages, but also the towns and their people, and the country side.  

Our room was on the second floor, our balcony just visible below the tree.

The frescoes in our room - imagine waking up to this!

This was the grandest haveli in Mandawa, extremely well restored with beautiful frescoes.

In a different haveli I saw another fresco with a telephone, a bicycle and a horse-drawn wagon.  The horse pulling the wagon looks like a British officer.  The telephone would have been 'new' to the region, or perhaps something that only the painter, who might have come from a larger urban perhaps is trying to stop it by pulling on its nose ring.  It was fun trying to puzzle out the significance of these frescoes.  But perhaps they were just done on a whim, with no particular reason except fun and colour.

We took a bus to a nearby town, Ramgarh, and spent the better part of a day wandering its streets looking at havelis.  The town is famous for the Seth Ramgopal Poddar Chhatri, which was in poor repair. 

Elephants were symbols of power and wealth.  Look how small their riders are!

We found another old haveli, also in a state of decay, that I loved just for its muted colours.

 

And a great fresco of a mythical beast - perhaps a lion or a tiger - being ridden by a lady.

The place that won the 'most havelis in town' was Nawalgarh, where many havelis had information signs giving their name, when they were built, and anything else of special significance.  Most had admission fees, and many had guides. 

The Murarka Haveli had a fabulous set of brass-studded wooden doors.  Note the (backwards) swastika fan above the door which may indicate someone of Jain fat now lives in - or more likely caretakes - the haveli.

The interior of the Murarka haveli.  

Many of the rooms on the second floor would have been bedrooms.

The Podar haveli was bigger, and even more spectacular.

The exterior of the haveli, with frescoes showing 

Rajputs and their women, and British officers.

The attention to detail is fantastic: the British with their safari jackets, hats and canes.

The seated Rajput with his fawning servants.  The women all in different coloured saris. 

The doorways with their mesh grill coverings, 

one with a pair of peacocks overtop, the other with a pair of doves (?).

The second level balcony of the haveli - a lovely light-filled space, 

with delicately carved columns and archways.  

An interior meeting room, or perhaps an area more used by women, as the beautiful frescoes are of flowers, women and children.  The two paintings on the upper story are interesting - depictions of the facade of a haveli (this one?) and a village (this one?), as seen from above.

The detail in these frescoes is amazing - I was particularly taken with the two bands, high in the inner courtyard, showing a military (?) procession complete with elephants and horses, and long train, with people peeking out from most of the windows.  The train would have been a novelty to most people, although not, perhaps, to the rich residents of this haveli.

Perhaps something from Indian mythology - women in the mouths of snakes?

Undoubtedly two of the Indian gods - from the Ramayana?

There was another haveli in Nawalgarh - a kind of 'plain Jane', without all the frescoes - that I loved just for its colours.

And this one, for the wonderful frescoes of carriages.

Although we came to Shekhawati for the havelis, and have spent several days in various villages visiting them, Shekhawati has so much more to offer.  Great walks, interesting and friendly people, and a wonderful hotel with generous and attentive staff.  We're going to be here a while....

For more information on havelis go to:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haveli
For more information on Shekhawati go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhawati
For more information on Rajputs go to:  https://www.indianrajputs.com/history/

New Delhi

October 24, 2015

This one is just sleeping

We've been waiting for the wifi to come back on here at hotel.  Things are a little hit and miss, to say the least.  But hey, what can you expect from a $20 a night hotel in one of the biggest cities in the world.  As we heard from almost everyone we met today - including an Assistant Bank Manager from Amritsar who showed us the way to a street stall where we could get an omelette, and then insisted on paying for our meals despite not having anything to eat himself - we are living in one of the worst slum areas of New Delhi.  And certainly it's pretty grotty.  Indeed, as we were walking back to our hotel this afternoon we saw a dead man - that's a first for me, but Doug says it's his fifth, not counting the ones in coffins.  It's pretty sobering.

 

As we were having lunch in an Indian 'restaurant' (we tend not to frequent the places that cater to Western people and serve Western food), I looked out on the street teaming with people and thought about the fact that for some reason, despite the garbage and filth, the people dressed in rags or worse, the beggars, and the press of unwashed and hopeless humanity, I love India.  Maybe it's because India forces you/me to confront reality in a way that no other place does.  This is how most of the world lives.  Westerners live in a fantasy world where everything is clean and we can pretty much have whatever we want whenever we want it.  We take it all for granted.  I appreciate the kick in the ass that India gives me.  India wakes me up, reminds me of my humanity.

 

We couldn't eat all of our lunch - should have ordered one 'kulchi' (a stuffed naan bread) between us.  So I wrapped up the left-overs in a couple of napkins and looked for a beggar kid to give them to.  Wouldn't you know it that we walked around for quite a while and didn't see any beggar kids.  Then saw a blind old man standing in the middle of the road, hands out for .... whatever.  I gave him the kulchis.  He was so appreciative, kept looking at me and 'Namaste-ing' me (putting his hands together in prayer and motioning towards me.  Then of course we came across several beggar kids and other desperately hungry-looking people.  Some of whom will likely end up, and maybe not too long from now, like the guy we saw a little later lying dead in the street.

 

Anyway now we're hanging out in our $20 room.  Doug just went downstairs to order some food to be brought up to the room.  (It's not a particularly good or safe area to walk around in at night.  And I haven't carried my camera around with me yet, not that there is anything I would want to take pictures of - it would just feel too crass.)  Apparently there was quite a lot of excitement in the lobby as all of the houseboys (they have four or five people working where we might have one) were running around trying to catch a rat by throwing a cloth over it.  They did manage to get it and were carrying it out to put it out on the road (there's a real aversion to killing anything here, including rats).  Doug suggested they take it to another hotel.  They thought that was hilarious (of course).  Indians do have a very good sense of humour.

 

What I can't believe they haven't killed yet (or still) are all the stray dogs.  Thousands of them, everywhere.  Scavenging like the rats and cats and other vermin.  So far none of them have been aggressive, but a lot of them are pretty scruffy looking - and of course very thin.  Dogs kill children in India with alarming regularity.  When we were last here, nine years ago, we'd read about these dog attacks in the local papers.  Awful.

 

Tomorrow we're heading for Simla, an old British hill station where those who were stationed in places like Delhi, or anywhere else where it was insufferably hot during the summer months, would pack themselves up and literally 'head for the hills'.  Sometimes just the women and children would stay, the men 'commuting' as often as they could.  Simla should be quite a change - cool, green, and maybe even quiet???  

We bought a India Rail information book that not only gives the schedules for all of the trains in what is the largest train system in the world (and one of the best), but also tells you exactly what meal you are going to get (veg, non-veg) including how many grams of each item, including sachets of ketchup, etc. will be in your meal.  Because we are traveling 'Executive Class' we get a welcome drink of real fruit juice, morning tea (tea/coffee kit, a digestive biscuit, and a refreshing tissue), and breakfast (cornflakes or oats with milk and sugar, slices white/brown bread, marmalade/jam sachets, butter chiplet, (2) stuffed paratha and branded curd (100 grams each) and pickle (15 grams), 2 kulcha channa and branded curd (100 grams each) and pickle (15 grams), 2 veg cutlets (50 grams each) with finger chips and boiled vegetables (25 grams), assorted fruits (banana/orange/apple), 1 tomato ketchup sachet (15 grams), 1 salt and pepper sachet each, and tea/coffee kit.  We assume these are choices.  

With any luck we won't be coming back to Delhi, 'New' or not.

 

Amritsar and the Golden Temple

October 2015

The Golden Temple is ... beautiful, breath-taking and deeply inspiring.  To Sikhs it’s known as the Harmandir Sahib, or ‘abode of God’, and is the most important shrine in the Sikh religion.  Over 150,000 people come here every day – most to worship, and many to volunteer their services, especially in the kitchen, but many, like me, just to see it and experience it.  To do that, we made a special trip to Amritsar, in northwestern India, not far from the border with Pakistan.  The town of Amritsar didn’t hold much of interest for us, although the food stalls at the night market served up some terrific food.

 

Doug with a temple guard

We headed to the temple in the morning, walking towards the main entrance, along with hundreds of others, many of them dressed in their finest clothes, women in colourful salwar kameez, men more casually dressed in shirts and slacks. Young boys with their hair slicked down, girls with their hair in tight braids, beribboned and barretted.  I had put on a dress, and covered my head with a light scarf – both women and men are required to cover their heads in the temple.  Everyone was excited.  For many families, their visit to the temple might be a first; they might have traveled some distance to get here, and they might have a special reason for wanting or needing to attend.  We, on the other hand, were just curious tourists, but it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of the crowd.

 

We spent all day at the temple, first walking around the entire site, which is large.  It’s a square of bright white buildings around a large pool.  The Golden Temple is clearly the most important of the buildings, and gets its name from the gold leaf that was used to cover the sanctum when it was rebuilt in 1809.  The temple’s been the site of numerous conflicts over the years, most notably in 1984, when Indira Gandhi sent the Indian army in to crush a rebellion.  Over a thousand people – civilians and soldiers – died during what was known as ‘Operation Blue Star’.  And parts of the temple complex were destroyed or damaged and had to be rebuilt, as so many of them had been, over the years.  All was quiet and peaceful when we were there, and it was difficult to even imagine this serene place as the site of bloody battles.

 

One of the most interesting places in the temple complex is the langar – a massive kitchen – where thousands and thousands of people are fed, every day, for free.  Anyone and everyone is welcome to partake, not just Sikhs.  The temple too welcomes those of all religions.  This welcoming and generosity of spirit is a hallmark of the Sikh faith.  The meals are strictly vegetarian, and are cooked in huge vats, some more than six feet in diameter, by a team of ‘chefs’ with very large and long utensils.  

 

The dining hall is equally huge – much bigger than a school gymnasium.  Everyone was seated on the floor, in relatively tidy rows, their metal plates of food before them.  Servers walked up and down the aisles ladling out more food – dahl, rice, vegetable curries – from buckets they carried in from the kitchen.  When they’d finished their meal, the now sated people came out of the hall with their empty plates, and handed them to a person stationed right at the door.  

The plates were then passed from hand to hand down a long line of volunteers to the dish washers.  And from them handed to another line of people who placed them on huge  stainless steel racks to dry.  

 

Many people come to the temple to volunteer in the kitchen, primarily as servers, dish washers and chapati makers.  I lingered by the door of a somewhat dark and smoke-filled room where a group of women, seated on the floor, were making chapatis.  They invited me in and showed me how to do it.  Fortunately, having been a bread maker for much of my life, the rolling and kneading came easily.  The women were suitably impressed.  After making a few chapatis I got up to take my leave, thinking as I did so that I could stay here, or somewhere like here, and do this, get involved with a group like these lovely women, doing something to be of service to others.  There is something deeply satisfying about serving.  But not here, and not now.  Instead I took with me a memory – a photo of me with two of the women – the two who had sat beside me and coached me in the art of chapati making.  

 

As we continued our stroll around the temple, heading now towards the exit, we saw an older woman carrying a large cement slab on her head.  Was she a paid worker, or a volunteer?  My guess is that she was a volunteer, and that she chose this particular task for a reason.  But what?

Amazingly, despite the crowds and all of the activity in the temple area, there are still places for quiet prayer or contemplation.

For more information about the Golden Temple go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Temple

The Maharaja and I - Same Same, No Difference

December 2015

Right from the start it was a day of striking, and for bleeding hearts like me, often disturbing, contrasts.  After a morning relaxing, reading, communicating electronically with geographically distant family and friends, catching up on the news, and then lunching on the quiet plant-filled roof-top terrace of our hotel, we descended into the squalor of the streets of Jodhpur, risked life and limb to cross the street, fording with false bravado the chaos and din of everyday Indian traffic, and got into a pre-arranged tuk-tuk with driver Govind.  He was an uncharacteristically slow driver who, even more uncharacteristically, did not beep his horn every two minutes as he drove.  Once we were a little ways out of the centre of town the roads became broader and quieter – we could almost relax and pretend, for those few minutes, that we were not in India. 

Umaid Bhawan Palace is situated atop Chittar Hill, just on the outskirts of the city.   At its base the hill is carpeted with green grasses and scrub vegetation, but higher up the landscape culminates in giant slabs of ‘pink’ sandstone, which in most lights appears either burgundy or orange.  The recently paved road up the ‘front-side’ of the Palace wound through a new, and very upscale, housing development.  I wondered who would live there – certainly not the vast majority of the people I saw daily on the streets and in the markets of Jodhpur.  Expats?  Political big-wigs?  It was disappointing, given the obvious expense of the development, to note that there were, at least as yet, no solar panels, despite adverts on India’s tv stations about the importance of, and India’s commitment to, green energy (solar and wind).  Ah well…

Once we got to the Palace gates, and paid our $2 ‘foreigners’ entry fee (after all, the Maharaja’s gotta eat!), we got our first unobstructed view of the Palace.  It was suitably impressive – a massive edifice on a 23 acre site, including 15 acres of gardens.  According to a sign inside the palace, it is the ‘last of India’s great palaces and one of the largest in the world’.  It has 347 rooms, including a throne chamber, an exclusive private meeting hall, a Durbar Hall where the Maharaja could meet with the public, a vaulted banquet hall that could accommodate 300 people, private dining halls, a ball room, a library, in indoor swimming pool and spa, a billiards room, four tennis courts, two unique marble squash courts, several courtyards, and multiple long passages connecting all the rooms.  It was built by Maharajah Umaid Singh over a period of 15 years (from 1929 to 1944), ostensibly as a ‘drought relief’ project.   Some 3000 ‘famine-starved’ people (men, women and children) were thus employed building an uber-luxurious palace for just one of the many royal families of Rajasthan.  

The chosen building materials – golden sandstone, marble, polished black granite and Burmese teak for the interior woodwork – were not nearby, and had to be brought in by train.  That of course required the construction of a special rail line… . The sandstone blocks used in the construction of the Palace are very large, and skillfully dry-fitted together without the use of mortar.  Because of the massive weight of many of the blocks, vast quantities of ice were also imported (there was no water nearby) to facilitate the exact placing of the blocks – the blocks were placed on ice supports, and fitted carefully into place as the ice melted.  Donkeys were brought in to haul tons of soil up the hill for the 15 acres of gardens.  The cost of all of this is estimated to have been well over 11 million dollars, which although it may have helped the drought-stricken population, pretty much bankrupted the people and the state of Rajasthan.

Very little of the Palace is open to the public at large.  Around two thirds of it is now a luxury hotel run by Taj Hotels. It has 70 guest rooms, including the luxurious "Maharaja" and "Maharani suites" with art deco style decorations.  The Maharajah Suite has black marble flooring and a curved mirrored dome.  The Maharani suite has an attached kitchen and a bathroom with a bath tub carved from a single block of pink marble.   Both the rooms are decorated with murals.  The Palace’s banquet hall is now the hotel’s (large) restaurant.  Most of the rest of the Palace is the very private residence of Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Jodhpur-Marwar, the grandson of Maharajah Umaid Singh.  

The Royals did manage to dedicate a small portion of the Palace to a museum, which is the only place most people can visit (at $800 plus per night the hotel is out of bounds for all but the rich and/or royal).  The museum is of course dedicated to the life and pursuits of the Royal Family as well as the construction of the Palace.  A special ‘Sporting’ section of the museum showcases the Royal’s love of polo (the Maharajah was known to take his entire team, and all their ponies, to matches in England, where he rented entire floors of upscale western hotels) and to his favourite sport, pig sticking.  There are also a couple of stuffed leopards on display in lifelike stances, presumably shot by one of the Maharajahs.

The entry door to the museum was guarded by a white-suited, orange-turbaned straight-backed, serious and mustachioed fellow whose photo I had to take several times to get him without back-pack laden, scruffy jeans and t-shirt wearing tourists.  Upon entering, I did notice that there were large holes in the toes of the guard’s shoes, and he of course had no socks, but he wore a big smile, and waved us graciously in to the sanctified main hall of the museum, where we were greeted by the first big portrait of the Maharajah himself.  Throughout the museum we saw many more large photos of the Maharajah – sufficient for me to coin the place the ‘All About Me Maharaja Museum’.  

Of all of the displays in the museum, perhaps the most fascinating one, maybe because of the current steampunk craze, was a collection of steam clocks – in the form of train engines, submarines, light-houses and windmills.  Otherwise the museum was somewhat disappointing.

Upon exiting the museum we heard a drum roll and trumpet fanfare from the direction of the hotel entrance, some 75  feet from the museum entrance (and the closest we were permitted to get), and saw a car drive up.  Two smartly uniformed (in a military style) men, a colourfully dressed bellboy and a beautifully dressed woman met the typically casually dressed, bag-and-backpack toting tourists who emerged, rather gracelessly, from the car.  We witnessed this ‘welcoming ceremony’ two or three times more in the course of a half-hour or so.  Not sure how the tourists enjoyed the show, but certainly the crowd of Indians watching from their vantage point, safely secured behind solid barricades, were enchanted.  Royalty and finery brings out the voyeur in all of us.

We skirted the gardens (do not walk on the grass, do not pluck flowers) to view the Maharajah’s vintage car collection, housed in a glass-fronted garage the size of an airplane hanger.  Several Rolls Royces, a couple of BMWs, Cadillacs and, improbably, a Morris Minor – maybe it belonged to one of the kids, or was purchased in a time of relative Royal austerity. 

As we were about to leave we stopped to chat with one of the many Palace guards.  His job was to keep people off the grass – Indian children have a way of straying from their parents.  We asked him how much it cost to stay at the hotel.  His response was 40,000 Rupees per night – with no food included, just the room (and not one of the fancy suites).  That’s $800, more or less.  We whistled – ‘that’s a lot of money for just a room’.

‘Yes’, but that’s nothing to you,’ he asserted.  ‘ You are airplane people – you came here on an airplane, and that costs a lot of money.  I am a cycle person.  I am a poor person.  You are rich like the Maharajah.’  We pointed out to him that the gap between us and the Maharajah, in terms of wealth, was no less than the gap between him and us.  But he would have none of it.  ‘The Maharajah is an airplane person.  You are airplane people. You and he are the same.’  In the end, he is right.  We are the same: white foreigners = Maharajahs.  If we really wanted to, we could pay the $800 or $1000 to stay at the Umaid Bhawan Palace Hotel.  He will never be able to do that.

We left the Palace by walking down the quiet ‘backside’ road which leads directly into town.  (Interestingly, we were the only tourists who chose to walk down – the rest took tuk-tuks or taxis, which come and go by the more dramatic front road.)  Nearest to the Palace entrance the road was lovely, flanked by well-tended grass and trees; we spotted a couple of peacocks on the top of a wall, silhouetted by the sun.  But not that far from the Palace, certainly still within its grounds, we noted the ubiquitous piles of litter and garbage, and the yellow-stained and pungent smelling walls that locals have marked as public ‘latrines’.  It must feel good, at times, to piss on the Maharajah and all he embodies.

As we reached street level we came upon a shabby, ragged tent colony of homeless – people about as destitute as any we’ve seen – right under and in view of the Palace.  Across the street from them were a row of expensive tourist antique shops showcasing the old doors, statuary and other artifacts that have apparently often been taken (some would say stolen) from old Rajasthani havelis.  Their price tags were well out of our reach.  A very old broken-down wooden cart, good for nothing but a garden decoration, was priced at $1000.  Well, why not?  I wondered what it would cost to ship it back to North America – about as much as a one night stay at the Umaid Bhawan Palace – with breakfast, of course. 

But I don’t think I’ll be staying at the Umaid Bhawan Palace Hotel any time soon, or any time at all.  Having moved among the people of Rajasthan and India, having witnessed the incredible hardships and deprivations that they live with and accept as given, I’m afraid I would feel nauseated at even the sight of a sumptuous multi-course dinner, served in a dining hall large enough to seat 300.  I may be a Maharajah (or Maharani), to the guard at the Palace, but I’m just a Western working gal counting my rupees in order to stretch my budget for as long as I can to explore this amazing place – Incredible India indeed.

Further Information

Umaid Singh (1903-1947) was Maharaja of Jodhpur from 1918 until his death. During his reign, Umaid Singh reformed and reorganized the Jodhpur State Forces and the judicial department, introduced a scheme for extending primary education, revised the land revenue settlement and established state pensions and a Provident Fund for state employees.

Umaid Bhawan Palace is one of the largest private residences in the world, with over 347 rooms.  Part of it is still the principal residence of the former Jodhpur royal family. Another part is a museum, and yet another part is run by the Taj Hotel group.  

For more information on the Palace go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umaid_Bhawan_Palace

For more information of the Hotel go to: 

 ^{http://www.tajhotels.com/luxury/grand-palaces-and-iconic-hotels/umaid-bhawan-palace-jodhpur/accommodations/maharaja-suites.html}

Here's what the site has to say about the Maharaja suite: “A much earthier and certainly a more masculine mood prevails in Maharaja Umaid Singh's suite just across the crystal fountain separating his suite from his Maharani's.  Obviously, Norblin saved his finest works for his generous patrons' personal apartment. The Maharaja Suite has murals of leopards, tigers, horses and even of the famed Jodhpur sport, pig sticking. Flaming torch lamps in chrome, plush Ruhlmann sofas in faux leopard skin, the delightful mirrored bar in the drawing room and the original artifacts that still adorn the shelves make this an incredibly handsome suite." 

Maharaja Suite Amenities

• 3700 square feet.
• Exotic painted murals by self-exiled artist Stefan Norblin.
• Chrome flaming torches.
• Plush Ruhlmann sofas.
• Mirrored bar.
• Original artifacts.
• Wifi services for resident guests (terms and conditions apply)
  * Basic access - complimentary
  * Premium access - at a nominal charge
• 5 fixtures bathrooms, including a double vanity counter, bathtub, shower stall and WC cubicles.
• LG or Samsung 33 inch LCD TV with DVD Player with a centrally located DVD library.
• In-room electronic safe.
• Dual line telephones with voicemails.
• 24 hour in-room dining.
• Evening turndown service with sweets.
• Glass tiled bathroom with private steam room & en suite couple therapy room.”
• Bath menu with four distinct choices.
• Rani Padmawati milk bath - rejuvenating Bath.
• Rajput princess bath - Healing Bath.
• Narangi bath - Energizing Bath.
• Vishuddhi Bath - Detoxification Bath