Moolah and the Makeover

GREY MATTER | BRAND ROYALTY For more log on to Sunday Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 29, 2009 13 BATTLE ROYALE Two states are vying for a piece of the heritage pie. The Rajasthan royals are old hands in the business, but they’re looking for more. In Madhya Pradesh, the rajas are now beginning to get their act together. Will we have a winner? KAILASH TAAK MANEK CHOWK, UDAIPUR RATLAM DISTRICT MADHYA PRADESH THROUGH THE ARCH A view of the Badi Pol entrance to the Udaipur City Palace from Aashka, the high-end boutique sell- TO THE MAHAL BORN: Raghvendra Singh and his wife Shivika on their Amla property. Singh has converted part of his ing lifestyle products run by the princess Bhargavi Kumari Mewar family’s ancestral palace into a heritage property with 11 rooms. On which they received 300 visitors in the last year day.There is vast potential for heritage tourism in Madhya Pradesh,” says Ashwani Lohani, MPTDC managing director. Moolah and Rising from The MPTDC too is developing two such properties it owns — the Laxmipur Palace in Panna spread over 13 hectares and Govindgarh Fort that once belonged to Maharaja Martand Singh of Rewa. the makeover the ruins So why has MP lagged behind in wooing tourists to heritage sites? Lack of infrastructure, connectivi- Hotels are history. In Rajasthan With enough royals of its own, ty and awareness are the major rea- sons for this. Unlike in Rajasthan, the rulers in Madhya Pradesh, bar- the royals are now pushing their Madhya Pradesh has woken up to ring a couple, were not rich. As a result, when privy purses were abol- art, photography and music the lucre in heritage tourism ished, they sold off their lands and moved to the cities where they now Gargi Gupta Mini Pant Zachariah live as commoners. Udaipur Indore UTTRAKHAND Like Maharaja Vikram Singh of PUNJAB Sailana near Ratlam who moved to HE BHAGWAT Prakash GOLDEN ARCHIVES Rajyashree AJA SALIWAHAN Pune and is busy popularising the Mahal in the Zenana HARYANA Kumari Bikaner points out photo- Jamnia gives new UTTAR Sailana cuisine across the world. Mahal is a relatively graphs that date back to 1840 meaning to single-hand PRADESH His father Digvijay Singh of Sailana BIKANER RAJASTHAN modern addition to the driving as he manoeu- was a connoisseur who compiled UP 16th century Udaipur Jaipur vres his black Scorpio a book on Sailana cuisine, apart T JODHPUR THE ‘M’ OF ETERNAL MEWAR, THE BRAND R City Palace. It was built in 1939 as through recently harvested fields. PANNA from developing the first cactus gar- the special quarters of the bride of RAJASTHAN IDENTITY RECENTLY REGISTERED BY THE En route from Mhow to Jamnia REWA den in India in Sailana around 55 the then heir apparent, Bhagwat Fort, his ancestral abode, he waves RATLAM Bhopal years ago. UDAIPUR UDAIPUR PALACE TRUST, NOW ADORNS Singh. Today the rooms, meticu- out to villagers, greeting everyone MADHYA Vikram Singh admits that expect- lously renovated to preserve their DOORSTOPPERS, MIRRORS, TRAYS AND JUGS with Jai Onkareshwar,the name of INDORE PRADESH ing tourists to go to Sailana just to quaint Art Deco styling, form the AT AASHKA, THE HIGH-END BOUTIQUE THAT his family’s ruling deity. experience a palace is foolhardy.But kernel of a specialised gallery show- GUJARAT MADHYA Princely states may be no more, he has plans for the royal property. PRADESH ARVIND SINGH MEWAR’S DAUGHTER RUNS casing the palace's rare collection but Jamnia is still addressed as raja MAHARASHTRA “It is to do with culinary tourism, of photographs. INSIDE THE PALACE and his wife Riteshwari as rani CHHATTISAGARH if you may call it that. Tourists can This gallery, which opened on saheb. Dressed in olive green cor- experience the ambience while they March 1, is the first step in a major taking over and turned its palaces House. A new annex to the muse- duroy trousers and a mauve T-shirt, that’s much more exciting than what learn to cook some of the Sailana conservation plan for the palace, into high-end hotels. This phenom- um, constructed at a cost of Rs 35 this 44-year-old ‘king’ of a state that Rajasthan offers.” His wife, who dishes. Such holidays work in Italy helped along by $150,000 from the enon, which began with Udaipur’s lakh, is almost ready and due to ruled over 86 villages is not averse heads an NGO for tribals in the area, and Australia. Given the craze for Getty Foundation, which envisages Lake Palace Hotel and Jodhpur’s open in September.“It will have bet- to riding a tractor to plough the 200 adds, “One can study the tribal cul- Indian cuisine, it should work here adding a children's play area, among Umaid Bhavan Palace Hotel, has ter preservation and display facili- acres of land that is now the fami- ture in this land of the Bhil tribals.” too,” he says. other conveniences, for the lakhs become so widespread now that ties for the manuscripts and arte- ly’s main source of income. His A couple of hundred kilometres Better road, rail and air links are who visit Udaipur every year. there are as many as 178 heritage facts,” says Dalip Singh, coordina- dream is to transform the eight- away, at Amla in Ratlam district, improving matters somewhat. The This is not the only evidence of hotels in Rajasthan today. Clearly, tor,“and also improved facilities for room Jamnia Fort and its adjoining Kunwar Raghvendra Singh has four-lane highway connecting change. Sometime last year, the the erstwhile rajas have proved very scholars, restaurants and a muse- ruins into a heritage hotel. already converted part of his fam- Madhya Pradesh to most major present ‘custodian’ of the Mewar good at what Mewar calls “heritage um shop.” Ask him why a tourist would come ily’s ancestral palace into an 11- cities is changing the way tourism dynasty Arvind Singh Mewar had as enterprise”. But by far the most concerted to Jamnia and Jamnia points to Rani room heritage property. Brushing is being viewed in the state. The ‘Eternal Mewar’ — the umbrella But if the earlier attempts at rein- efforts in this regard have been those Roopmati ka Mahal in Mandu, 14 aside teething troubles like lack of Neemuch-Mhow national highway identity he has thought up to con- vention looked at the physical her- initiated by Gaj Singh II, the mahara- kms away, the nearby lake and power, water and approach roads, and the Bhopal-Mandsaur state nect all his diverse activities from itage — the palaces and other treas- jah of Jodhpur.A pioneer in the field Sholay-like landscape around. “We’ll Singh says he got some 300 visitors highway, due to be completed in a hotels, to museums, library and ures — the more recent attempts of conservation efforts in India, the offer a horse safari to Mandu, water to his property last year.A hundred year, will offer better connectivity music room, registered as a trade- have focused on consolidation and maharajah’s magnificent home, sports, fishing and an experience kilometres from Madhya Pradesh’s to Rajasthan as well as places like mark. “It’s our brand, says Mewar, making the most of the ‘immateri- Umaid Bhavan, was the subject of a capital Bhopal, Maharaja Bhanu Ujjain, Mandu, Maheshwar and using the jargon of the corporate al’ heritage — art, photography, handsomely produced and imagi- THE SCINDIAS AND HOLKARS ARE Prakash Singh of Narsinghgarh is Onkareshwar. leader that he is, considering that architecture, even music. natively laid-out tome. “Not even WELL-KNOWN ROYAL FAMILIES OF getting ready to sign off the 300-odd Of the 725 royal properties in his HRH Group of Hotels manages The Bhagwat Prakash Photo Buckingham Palace…has inspired MADHYA PRADESH. BUT FEW KNOW THAT room fort built in 1685 to a hospi- Madhya Pradesh, at least 225 are in a chain of 10 properties across Gallery is an example of this, but so sumptuous a book,” the blurb tality company,which will convert the private sector. But despite the Rajasthan. there’s a similar gallery which rightly claims. Last year, his THE STATE IS HOME TO OVER 725 PALACES it into a palace hotel. potential, developing them is prov- The ‘M’ of the Eternal Mewar opened recently at the Sadul Mehrangarh Museum Trust also AND FORTS OWNED BY DESCENDANTS The Scindias and Holkars are the ing difficult because often there is brand, artistically interpreted, now Museum in Lallgarh Palace, started Sufi Durbar,the music festi- OF PRINCELY STATES well-known royal families of no clear title. According to MPTDC’s adorns doorstoppers, mirrors, trays, Bikaner. “Going back to the 1840s, val at the Nagaur fort, a UNESCO Madhya Pradesh, but few know that Shrivastav,only 39 have a clear title. jugs and so on at Aashka, the high- the photographs in our collection heritage site, with the objective of Arun Mondhe/HT the state is home to over 725 palaces, The owners do not have the money end boutique that Mewar’s daugh- is perhaps the best pictorial record attracting tourists and developing it forts and garhis (small forts). to develop these properties on their ter runs inside the palace. of the princely states,” says as a “vital link in the desert triangle These lesser-known royalties now own and the developers insist on Royal Rajasthan is changing with Rajyashree Kumari Bikaner,chair- of Bikaner,Jaisalmer and Jodhpur”. smell an opportunity in heritage outright purchase, which is not the times, reinventing itself as it person of the Maharaja Ganga This year,Jodhpur’s heritage out- tourism, a business that is thriving acceptable to the owners.

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