My first brush with Rajasthan was the visual spectacle in Ian Fleming’s bond escapade Octopussy, which was elaborately set in Rajasthan. What stood out besides the routine bond razzmatazz was the exquisite beauty of Rajasthani palace architecture, masterly workmanship and sheer artistic audacity of our native artisans and their patrons who created these masterpieces long before the whites arrived on the scene.
So, off we went to see and live first hand this wonderland royal heritage—the high art of the Indian palace architecture in our recent road trip to Rajasthan. We made a rudimentary itinerary touching on some of the major erstwhile royal strongholds and yet wove-in some adventure by avoiding all kinds of prior bookings or detailed planning. This strategy, we thought, would help maintain flexibility and keep our focus sharply on discovering.
The first stop, after a swift early drive from Delhi, was Jaipur. Jaipur, has historically seen several settlements made at different periods in time. Raja Jai Singh, a noted Astronomer and mathematician built the most recent specimen, the Pink City—which in modern independent India has seen elevation of status to the state’s capital and resultant explosive expansion all around it. But the heritage sights, which are liberally sprinkled throughout and are easy to access, have only benefited from the expansion and easy access.
We stayed at the Samode Haveli, located at the northern gate of Jaipur—a classic example of clusterhousing (Mohalla) style of habitat, typical of North India. Samode Haveli was originally designed as an occasional makeshift residence for the royal household of Samode, a subservient fief to the Jaipur state that rose as the most powerful and richest princely state in Rajasthan ever since their original diplomatic and nuptial alliance with Akbar.