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Construction of The Palace
For over a hundred years Jag Mandir has served as the
main pleasure palace of the Sisodia rulers. During the
rule of Maharana Sangram Singh II (1716-34) his son
Jagat Singh II had asked permission for a sojourn at
Jag Mandir but for reasons best known to the father
the young prince was refused. On the other hand the
adjacent island was given up for the prince’s personal
use. Pavilions of the palace were constructed before
1734 and after his coronation Gadi Rana Jagat Singh
II (1734-1751) further expanded the marble water palace.
Jagat Singh II named the palace, Jag Niwas, also known
as the Lake Palace, after himself. The palace faces
east, allowing its inhabitants to pray to the Sun god
at the crack of dawn.
The Extension of Many Palace
Jagat Singh’s period saw the extension of the palace
through the Bara Mahal, Khush Mahal, Phool Mahal, Dhola
Mahal, Dilaram Palace and the Canal The Khush Mahal
(Palace of Happiness) is also known as the Maharani
suite since the Queens were occupying it, is one of
the sought after rooms in the palace. It has a perfect
Moorish setting – coloured glasswork framing the windows,
marble flooring, the bed with its luxurious bedding
and offers the most enchanting way to watch the sun
set over the quiescent waters of the lake. In the heart
of the room is an antique jhoola (swing). The other
palaces include Udai Prakash with a huge terrace and
Kamal Mahal with exquisite glass inlay in designs of
lotus and leaf patterns. Col. Tod when writing about
his life in the palace says: "Here they listened to
the tale of the bard and slept off their noonday opiate
amidst the cool breezes of the lake, wafting delicious
odours from myriads of lotus flowers which covered the
surface of the waters."
¤ Served As A Refuge Place for British Families
During the famous Indian Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 several
European families fled from Nimach and used the island
as an asylum, offered to them by Maharana Swaroop Singh.
In order to protect his guests the Rana destroyed all
the town’s boats so that the rebels could not reach
the island.
The Inlay Work
The upper room of the palace is a perfect circle and
is about 21 feet in diameter. Ferguson, the noted antiquarian,
is of the opinion, that it was the prettiest room that
he had ever seen or known in India. "Its floor is inlaid
with black and white marbles, the walls are ornamented
with nichés and decorated with arabesques of different
coloured stones in the same style as the Taj at Agra,
though the patterns are Hindu and dome is exquisitely
beautiful in form. A room built of 12 enormous slabs
of marble, Shah Jahan’s throne sculptured from a single
block of serpentine and the little mosque dedicated
to Kapuria Baba, a Muhammedan Saint, are other objects
of interest on the island."
The Breathtaking Beauty of Palace
About Jag Niwas it has been said that "the low yet extensive
island fringed with marble piazzas enclosing luxuriant
orange-gardens interspersed with sombre cypresses; towering
palms and gilded minarets shooting up here and there;
the whole resting upon background of the dark and lofty
Aravallis, forms a scene unsurpassed by any other in
India." Ferguson has written about these two spots that
"the only objects in Europe to be compared with them
are the Baromean islands in the Lago Maggiore but I
need scarcely say their Indian rivals lose nothing by
comparison. They are as superior to them as Duomo at
Milan is to Buckingham Palace. Indeed I know of nothing
that will bear comparison with them anywhere."
The Fading glory of The Place
By the latter half of the 19th century time and weather
took their toll on the extraordinary water palaces of
Udaipur. Pierre Loti, a French writer, described Jag
Niwas as "slowly mouldering in the damp emanations of
the lake." About the same time two colonial bicyclists,
William Hunter Workman and his wife Fanny, were distressed
by the ‘cheap and tasteless style’ of the interiors
of the water palaces with "an assortment of infirm European
furniture, wooden clocks, coloured glass ornaments,
and children’s toys, all of which seems to the visitor
quite out of place, where he would naturally expect
a dignified display of Eastern splendour."
The reign of Bhopal Singh (1930-55) saw the addition
of another pavilion, Chandra Prakash, but otherwise
the Jag Niwas remained unaltered, degrading, weak, and
raring to fall but increasingly silent about it. Geoffrey
Kendall, the noted theatre personality, described the
palace during his visit in the 1950s as "totally deserted,
the stillness broken only by the humming of clouds of
mosquitoes." When Maharana Bhagwat Singh ascended the
throne in 1955, Udaipur’s golden years were already
on the decline. Their fierce sense of self-respect and
code of honour had given them their dignity but at the
cost of their fortunes. Other Rajput kingdoms had prospered
through their relationships with either the Mughals
or the British (or both), but the Sisodias were only
dependent on their wealth. Even in the 1960s Udaipur
had no industry or business as such, with the only one
being that of sword making.
Palace Converted into A Luxury Hotel
Bhagwat Singh was wise enough to realise this and prepared
himself for the future of his dynasty and kingdom. With
this purpose in mind he decided to convert the Jag Niwas
Palace into Udaipur’s first luxury hotel. Didi Contractor,
an American artist, became a design consultant to this
hotel project.
Didi’s accounts gives an insight to the life and responsibility
of the new maharana of Udaipur: "I worked from 1961
to 1969 and what an adventure! His Highness, you know,
was a real monarch – really like kings always were.
So one had a sense of being one of the last people to
be an artist for the king. It felt the way one imagines
it was like working in the courts of the Renaissance.
It was an experience of going back in time to an entirely
different era, a different world. His Highness was actually
working on a shoestring. He wasn’t in dire straits,
mind you, but when he came to the throne he inherited
big problems like what to do with the 300 dancing girls
that belonged to his predecessor [Maharana Bhopal Singh].
He tried to offer them scholarships to become nurses
but they didn’t want to move out of the palace so what
could he do? He had to keep them. They were old crones
by this time and on state occasions I remember they
would come to sing and dance with their ghunghats [veils]
down and occasionally one would lift hers to show a
wizened old face underneath. and he had something like
twelve state elephants. and he had all these properties
which were deteriorating. The buildings on Jag Niwas
were starting to fall down and basically the Lake Palace
was turned into a hotel because it seemed the only viable
way that it could be maintained … It was really a job
of conservation."
Kipling had once stated that "allpalaces in India excepting
dead ones are full of eyes," and Didi found it exactly
so in case of Jag Niwas.
The Restoration Work Commenced
The palace was filled with peepholes, secret passages,
and secret chambers. There was a room that could be
entered only through a trap door at the top. The Lake
Palace Hotel caught the fancy of several distinguished
guests including Elizabeth II, Jacqueline Kennedy, the
Shah of Iran and the King of Nepal.
The hotel provides an opportunity for guests to have
an inimitable glimpse of the lifestyle that was once
associated with the aristocracy. Major renovation and
extension was done on the palace in 1970, which did
little to debilitate it. Jag Niwas was more a garden
with several pavilions, built mostly in the 18th century.
However, recent additions on the island palace are modern
in style. In 1971 the management of the hotel was taken
over by the Taj Group of Hotels and they have made the
water palace one of the most attractive Indian tourist
sites with its fantastic amalgamation of courts, apartments
and gardens.
Just behind the Lake Palace there is a small island,
proud with its own palace called the Arsi Vilas. This
one was built by one of the numerous maharanas of Udaipur
to enjoy the sunset on the lake. It is also a sanctuary
catering to a variety of birds, including tufted ducks,
coots, egrets, terns, cormorants and kingfishers. The
most interesting part is that the palace has a landing,
which is often used as a helipad.
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