Its just another evening at a sprawling old 19th century palace.
The air is still, the night jasmine is in bloom.
We are sitting around the garden talking wildlife while the labradors bark at shadows. The prince of Dhenkanal tells us stories of civet cats and elephants. His mother talks about mouse deer and wild boars. We ask about a leopard that once wandered in from the forested hills.
LEOPARD: There was a story of a panther being shot. No Leopard. Shot on the The wall had collapsed at the back. Oh, it's a mud fort, right? The walls are mud. It had collapsed.
Dhenkanal in the eastern Indian state of Odisha was one of many former princely states in India. There are officially no kings and queens in India anymore but locals still use those titles for the former royals. Its part respect, part habit.
But palaces are hard to maintain without kingdoms. So many royals have converted their old palaces into hotels. It was a way to save them says Meenal Jhala Singhdeo, who is married to current crown prince of Dhenkanal, Amarjyoti Singhdeo.
MSD1: this is one way to preserve and conserve your homes.
A princess in a palace sounds like the stuff of fairy tales. The reality was more sobering.
MSD2: It was from my God, these houses are falling. There was a time I used to sleep with a pillow on my head because the plaster was falling on me.
They struggled with monsoon leaks and termite armies. And rooms that weren’t ready for 20th century guests.
MSD3: they were all unfurnished rooms with no electricity, no plumbing, because they were oil lamps were used. There were pulley fans. Some of the rooms we still retain. There’s a hole and a pulley fan to show how it was.
Just putting in the plumbing was an engineering feat.
MSD4: So an almost 20 inch walls to break into to do the plumbing. And the electrification was huge. That took a long time.
What’s lovely though is so much of the old palace remains. The rickety guard who watches over the front door has an impressive handlebar mustache but seems as old as the palace itself. An elephant’s head from the days when hunting was still legal, presides over the bar. The mantelpiece has old black and white family pictures. The sideboards have the china. The ceiling fans creak noisily.
FANS
A brood of Parrots shriek at us from their nests up near the roof. Every morning we we are greeted by the sounds of birds we cannot identify.
BIRDS
Huge striped spiders spin massive webs across the stairs.
At night the the moon rises, pinkish golden in a sky studded with stars, looming over the black outlines of the forested hills.
The royals live their lives amidst the guests. The crown prince pops into the kitchen to fry pumpkin blossoms as a treat for his guests. And leads us on an impromptu trip to spot wild elephants with excited villagers blowing horns.
ELEPHANTS
His father Kamakshya Prasad presides over the dining table. He is in his eighties, a little hard of hearing, a little forgetful but graciously greeting every guest, manners as impeccable as the table settings.
"Where are you from? What did you do today? Hope you have no discomfort."
It didnt happen overnight - this conversion from palace to homestay, king to host. When they started over 30 years ago, bookings would come by snail mail sometimes from as far away as England. Meenal Jhala Singhdeo says she and her husband would go to the airport themselves to pick up their guests, a two hour ride from the palace over bumpy roads and forests and fields
MSD5: if somebody asked for a washroom, all we could do is speed up because the bushes were all there was to offer. And we started like that with two rooms.
Now palace hotels are commonplace in India. But Dhenkanal does not feel like a manicured hotel or a curated art gallery.
MSD6: we didn't want to make it like a hotel because it is our home.
Palace tourism in India can become sepia tinted nostalgia for some feudal past. An expensive way for tourists to feel like kings and queens for a day.
But in Dhenkanal they had somehow managed to restore it not as a hotel but as a home, lived in and comfortable like a beloved old cotton sari.
As night falls, the priest arrives with a lamp and bells.
PRAYERS
The royal ladies get up, pull their saris over their heads and join the priest, switching effortlessly back to timeless old traditions.
Then Katsu, the 6 month old French bulldog waddles in to investigate. A 21st century interloper into centuries old traditions.
And the past feels perfectly at home in present. And that’s the key to Dhenkanal’s future.
This is Sandip Roy in Dhenkanal for KALW.