A MAHARANI ; A DESTINY AND A MUSEUM – with my Guest HRH PRIYADARSHINI RAJE SCINDIA In Gwalior and Delhi

Smitten By Faith Issue # 00031 March 5th 2022

HRH Priyadarshini Raje Scindia is the Maharani or Royal Queen of Gwalior, a historic and major princely city-state in Madhya Pradesh located about 320 kilometres south of India’s capital, New Delhi.   I was captivated and held captive by her sweet fresh young face when she was first introduced to me - she was just 17 years old, a Princess from the Royal house of Baroda and destined to marry my husband’s God-Son, the then Crown-Prince of Gwalior, HRH Jyotiraditya Rao Scindia, later the Maharaja of Gwalior and who is now the Minister of Civil Aviation and MP. Already then, this Princess was very down to earth.  “Just call me ‘Priya,” she said and continues to say - to everyone she meets and who she totally disarms.

HRH Priyadarshini Raje Scindia, the Maharani of Gwalior with her beautiful enigmatic smile

Now, just in her forties and 2 beautiful and amazing children later ( HRH Crown-Prince Aaryaman and HRH Princess Ananya), Priya - this beautiful contemporary Maharani is often in the ‘Best Dressed ‘ and ‘Most Beautiful Women of India’ lists but honestly, Priya does not really care much for all this attention. She is, however, happy if this interest helps bring Gwalior to the radar screen. Priya uses her royal grace and modern style to restore, conserve and revive not just the family’s Jai Vilas Palace and beloved Museum in Gwalior but also the attractions of the ancient city of Gwalior and its time-honoured traditional crafts.

Left : Thoroughly modern royal siblings - the children - Princess Ananya with Crown-Prince Aaryaman

Centre : Priya with her husband, the Maharaja, HRH Jyotiraditya Rao Scindia

Right : An informal picture of Priya with her husband

There is an express fast train to Gwalior from Delhi which takes just 3 hours. You can also fly there. The famous city of Agra with its Taj Mahal is situated halfway between Delhi and Gwalior. Gwalior was among the five special princely states which were accorded a 21 gun salute during the British rule. Along with Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu, Kashmir and Baroda, Gwalior held important stature within British India. Gwalior was not only the capital of the Scindia royal family but is also famous for its magnificent palaces, old temples, the impressive Gwalior Fort and many other tourist attractions.

I have, of course, been many times to Gwalior. It holds a very special place in my heart. Aside from the Palace and the Museum, Gwalior with its antiquity going back to prehistoric times has amazing sights to offer. Here are some of my personal extraordinary places to visit in Gwalior:

THE JAI VILAS PALACE

Left : A close-up of the 400 room Jai Vilas Palace - a palace and a home

Right : The night-time view of the Palace

The magnificent Jai Vilas Palace has more than 400 rooms ! At the Durbar Royal Hall, you will see incredible chandeliers, paintings and rare Oriental and European objects d’art. It is no surprise that its carpet which almost covers the entire Durbar Hall is one of the largest in Asia. At the Formal Dining Room where I was lucky enough to have dined many times, there is the famous model railway running the length of the enormously long table, with a silver train that carries the after-dinner brandy and cigars in silver caddies around the table. 

Left : A close up of the silver train with the after-dinner caddies

Right : The formal dining room with the Silver Train

GWALIOR FORT

Left and Centre : The magnificent and awesome Gwalior Fort

Right : The road leading up to the Fort which shows the commanding view of the Fort over Gwalior

The massive 8th century ochre-coloured sandstone citadel, Gwalior Fort is located on top of the highest point in Gwalior and can be seen for miles around. The Mughal Emperor Babur is believed to have described the Fort as the pearl among the many fortresses in his Empire. The Fort consists of a defensive structure, two main palaces, temples and other buildings. It is now an archaeological museum. An interesting vignette - the oldest record of ‘zero’ in the world was actually found here in Gwalior Fort in a small temple which is located on the way to the top. The inscription is around 1500 years old ! Priya speaks about this in her article below.

THE USHA KIRAN TAJ PALACE HOTEL

Above : Different views of the Usha Kiran Guest Palace - now a hotel

The Usha Kiran Palace was originally built as a guest house for the HRH The Prince of Wales (later King George V). This lovely jewel of a palace is located next to the Jai Vilas Palace and today it is run as a luxury hotel and is a splendid Taj-Hotels managed property.

THE SCINDIA SCHOOL

Above : The Scindia School at its spectacular location high up near Gwalior Fort.

Founded by Maharaja Madhav Rao Scindia I in 1897, The Scindia School built high up near the Gwalior Fort is an exclusive boarding school – one of the best in India – at first meant to educate the sons of Indian princes and nobles but now includes all young boys who make the grade. The school’s tranquil and amazing location, its history and its curriculum continue to make the Scindia School a big draw.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF GWALIOR

Above : The colourful and busy markets in the ancient town of Gwalior

Above : Pictures of the amazing street food of Gwalior

About the colourful ancient city of Gwalior with more than a million people teeming its colourful narrow medieval streets, I have no words to fully describe this amazing city. Just think of the riot of colours – every colour of the rainbow and more - from sarees and other fabrics hanging from little shops around each street corner; the delicious waft of all kinds of exotic street food; intricate eye-catching handicrafts; small temples everywhere; people of every age rushing around; the many markets; the ubiquitous cows plodding along and yes, chaos everywhere ! You need to see Gwalior for yourself !

CHANDERI FABRICS

Left : A finished product - a Chanderi silk saree

Centre and right : The Chanderi weavers

Chanderi consists of clusters of villages which form a weavers’ town, located near the River Betwa in the Guna district of Madhya Pradesh. About 3000 weaver families live and work in Chanderi. Together, they engage in all aspects of the production of this beautiful fabric -- warping, colouring and hand-weaving. Since the process is labour-intensive, each family produces only about two meters of fabric per day (which means a total of only 7200 meters of this rare fabric in Chanderi). Bravo to Priya for working so hard to maintain this traditional handicraft !

THE JIWAJI RAO SCINDIA MUSEUM

Left : The imposing entrance to the H.H Sir Jiwaji Rao Scindia Museum which occupies a wing of the Jai Vilas Palace

Right : Here I am inside the Museum with my friend Liu Xia who runs her own family companies in Chengdu and Shenzhen and who was visiting Gwalior together with a group of other Chinese entrepreneurs and philanthropists ( the CGPI ). They had the BEST guide because Priya was kind enough to show them around.

And, so I have saved the best for last. The MUSEUM and Priya’s very thoughtful and moving Article.

In May 2020 on the very appropriate Museum Day, at the height of the Covid Pandemic when India suffered so terribly and lost so many hundreds of thousands of lives, Priya wrote the touching article below - about the effect of the Pandemic and the long lockdown on her family’s beloved Museum, The Jiwaji Rao Scindia Museum which is located  in a wing of the amazing Jai Vilas Palace, occupying around 35 rooms. With Priya’s permission, I am reproducing her article here. And I would like to say to those who are gingerly putting on their travel outfits and ready to travel again – don’t wait - come and visit GWALIOR !

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CUSTODIANS OF A GLORIOUS PAST ; RESTORING AND CONSERVING A MUSEUM

BY HRH PRIYADARSHINI RAJE SCINDIA

Gwalior and Delhi                     Museum Day, May 2020

Left : Saree-clad Priya in a reflective mood.

Right: A very informal dressed-down Priya during the Pandemic working in a courtyard of the Palace, with her Ipad and nursing her broken foot.

Published on Museum Day, 2020 by HRH Priyadarshini Raje Scindia

“ Today couldn’t be a more beautiful day in Gwalior. The skies are blue and clear. But there is a stillness that chills in the air. The more I look out over the property, the more anxious it makes me feel. The reverberations of crowds of students and tourists no longer echo in the central courtyard. The grass has grown riotously; I finally allow my daughter’s cows to graze in the hope that they will somehow manage to give it a much-needed trimming. Ordinarily, I would lose my temper if the cows were allowed to roam on the grounds, but these are hardly ordinary times. The gates are closed, engulfing the Jai Vilas Palace and HH Sir Jiwajirao Scindia Museum (in memory of the grandfather of my husband, Jyotiraditya Scindia) in an eerie calmness; there are only a handful of people on the premises. I am struck by the symbolism behind the etching of the first recorded written ‘zero’ on our [Gwalior ] Fort - “Shunya”- it stands for nothing; yet represents everything.

My projections for this year were positive; I had hoped to mend the roof, build a stronger museum team, bring in a consultant, and most importantly, give our staff a bonus. My son Aaryaman and I worked tirelessly to bring to life ‘Cercle’, an immersive music event this January. And next on the cards was ‘Cymbal’, a two-day art and culture festival with environmental conservation at its core, taking place on the premises of our home. We wanted to showcase the best of Madhya Pradesh through this celebration of life, and to shine a light on eco-warriors. Those plans have been indefinitely postponed. Under the current circumstances, I can’t imagine people travelling out of their cities soon, especially to smaller cities like Gwalior. Tourism may not return fully until March or April 2021. That’s a year of revenue lost. Our staff remains in lockdown in their homes, wondering what their financial future entails. As newspapers report daily on employees being let go, they worry about their fate too. Private museums like ours depend heavily on ticket sales. While the Scindia Museum is eligible for grants, these grants come with a lot of rules which, in the long run make it difficult for us to look for additional funding. Even so, funding does not pay salaries.

I often hear people say that Maharajas are lucky to live in their palaces. I assure you that, to us, the palace exterior is just the shell of what lies within. A palace is a vessel of stories, of history, art and heritage. The walls have been witness to innumerable historical moments, secret rendezvous, heads of state, deaths, births and so much more. In 1950, when Indian states unified to become one country, the royal families of India paid Rs. 77 crore to kickstart our country’s economy. This large sum was provided in the form of jewellery, land, palaces, personal effects, armies, educational institutes, healthcare, and infrastructure like railways, which still stand proud today. If the same amount of money was equated in today’s terms, it would work out to be around Rs 9,97,000 crore. That’s a pretty penny in my opinion, but later even the promise of a privy purse was removed. So our forefathers were forced to evolve. We moved on with the times and had to do what was best for our homes, families and the people who loyally stood by us through all these times. Therefore, there is a certain duty we feel to work relentlessly to preserve bits of our history, of India’s history. To some of us, historians have been careless or unkind, but we have fought on.

EXHIBITS FROM A MUSEUM

Left : a beautiful carriage for the Maharajas of Gwalior

Centre : Priya adjusting the head-dress on a display dummy wearing a priceless princely heritage outfit displayed at the Musuem

Right : Lovely stain glass windows at the Museum

I took over operations of the Scindia Museum in 2002, and we’ve had a good run. Dedicated to Jivaji Rao Scindia, it occupies about 35 rooms of the Jai Vilas Palace. While the palace was built back in 1874, the museum was established only in 1964, and is well-known for its collection of manuscripts, sculptures, coins, paintings, weapons. Our chandeliers and the model silver train are world-famous, but the maintenance of palaces and artefacts is an expensive and tedious affair. The going has never been easy, but we managed to keep going, slowly. The strength of our team grew, and we were able to employ a lot more people to work on the museum. We finally completed our website. But it’s not simply a matter of advertising a museum or hotel; we work on marketing Gwalior and MadhyaPradesh as a destination. We worked towards getting more flights to come in, and more passengers on those flights.

We depend almost entirely on tourists. They arrive curious to explore, and shop, and they leave with the stories of small, historically rich and quirky towns. There are a plethora of palaces, castles, forts, history, legends and more in Madhya Pradesh. In Chanderi, our craftsmen weave magic from the threads in their looms and sell their exquisite creations for a fraction of the retail price. Sarees by Rama and Kothari are beautiful too. But we have cool new local brands too, like Amrutam skincare, and clothing by Chambal. Eat the best laddoos at Bhaduras and kachoris from AS Kachoriwala. The stunning Killa Kothi on the fort is a must-visit, situated on the Scindia estate, and run by the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board.

Our forests and reserves like Panna and Bandhavgarh boast some of the best tiger sightings in India. Our jungles are the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. Yet, even today, many Indian and international travellers have not discovered the treasures of this heart of India. It is a chicken-and-egg situation: we need more tourists to visit in order to gain sufficient funds to conserve and maintain our natural and cultural heritage, which will, in turn, attract more tourism.

The rise of COVID19 has accelerated the process of digitization and the use of technology in museums around the world. My sincere hope is that we manage to leap into the future along with retaining a foot in the past: Virtual tours to guide you through revolutionary artillery, antique furniture, and exquisite rooms that you can only imagine. But with that, we want to be able to tell you stories that may sound like fairy tales but are most certainly true.

Left : The magnificent and grand Durbar Hall, Jai Vilas Palace which visitors can see during the Museum Tour

Right : A close-up of one of the 2 amazing and gigantic crystal chandeliers

One of my personal favorites is the fact that eight elephants were made to walk on the roof of the Darbar Hall in the Jai Vilas Palace to ensure it could withstand the weight of two of the world’s largest crystal chandeliers, weighing more than 2.5 tonnes each! (They are still spectacular and majestic to look at, but you can only imagine what it is like to clean them!) Perhaps in the future, we can not only show you the details of these masterpieces but use 3D projections to recreate the elephants moving along the roof! The possibilities are endless and we must keep looking for new and exciting opportunities.

At the same time, as custodians of this tremendous treasure of architecture, lifestyle, art, and most importantly a Maratha museum in northern India, we realise that there is much that cannot be replicated and delivered via the internet. We want you to come, touch, feel and experience what we have to offer. I cannot possibly recreate the moment of excitement that people feel when they arrive at the home of a Chanderi weaver, and have a cup of tea, and listen to the story and history of weaving against the famous Madhya Pradesh sunset. There is something special about coming to a beautiful property like ours for a festival and to be fully immersed in the past for two complete days, sampling ancient recipes with authentic ingredients and listening to old caretakers with memories of the days gone by. And yet, you can do so along with many others, who come from all across India and all parts of the world. It is an extraordinary mix of old and new, the past and present and singularly unique. You cannot transport the ambience, vibe or energy; it is a coming together of so many moving parts.

So, as we try and go digital to keep you engaged with us, and as we pray for things to settle down soon and this tragic time to end, I hope you will add Madhya Pradesh, Gwalior and the Scindia Museum to your travel bucket list and come visit us when you can. Please do travel more in India and discover our riches and secrets with your family and friends. We will be waiting to welcome you. Let our chandeliers be your guide, come take a seat at our table, and let the silver train pass you some treats.”

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