Deogarh, a Mewar hill palace and its painters

The story of a Chundawat stronghold

• The Chundawats: Chunda's descendants became a great clan of the Sisodia house.
• Honour repaid: they held the right to ride in the harawal, the vanguard of the Maharana's army, and became some of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom.
• Deogarh or Devgarh: older maps use the second spelling. It was one of the Chundawats' seats.
• On the frontier: the town sits on the eastern side of the Aravallis, on high ground where Mewar meets Marwar to the west and the old Ajmer country to the north.
• A frontier lord: that made the Rawat of Deogarh a border noble, and at its height the estate controlled around two hundred villages.
• At court: its ruler was one of the sixteen first-rank nobles of Mewar, the solah umrao, entitled to attend the Maharana in Udaipur.
• What a thikana was: a noble's holding granted by the ruler for service and loyalty, with its own court, temples, artists and small army.
• The title: Deogarh's rulers were Rawats rather than Rajas or Ranas, and the town still uses the title for the head of the family.
• Untangling the terms: our short piece on rawlas and thikanas explains the system.
• The palace: on the hill above the town, dating from the seventeenth century. Later Rawats added wings, terraces, painted rooms and towers.
• Generations stacked up: the building you see is several eras on top of one another.
• After 1947: the family lived on through Independence and the end of the princely order, and after years of slow decline restored the palace themselves.
• Today: it is open to guests, and part of it is still their home.

Deogarh Mahal, a palace that still has a family in it

• The view: a patchwork of lakes, fields and low granite hills.
• Narrow by design: rooms are reached by narrow stairs and sudden corridors, a defence long before they were a charm.
• The Deogarh manner: the palace is known for painted and glass-inlaid rooms and wall paintings in the local school that gives the town its place in art history.
• Murals in the rooms: some guest rooms keep old paintings on their walls and around their doorways.
• The suites: large and full of family furniture, carved doors, swing seats and window seats deep enough to read in.
• Sounds of a real town: from the pool terrace you hear temple bells, school bells, a motorbike, someone selling vegetables.
• The real luxury: the family still lives in part of the palace and manages it personally.
• Evenings: dinner is often on a roof or terrace under the stars, served by staff who have often worked here for many years.
• Conversation: it can turn from cricket to the price of maize to the Rawat who commissioned a particular painting.
• Read more: our Deogarh Mahal guide for the rooms we ask for, and staying with a royal family for what a home rather than a hotel is like.

The Deogarh school of miniature painting

• What they painted: portraits, hunts, festivals, processions and court scenes, many showing the Rawat on horseback, at a shrine, with companions or watching dancers.
• Bagta: the elder of one painting family, who had worked at Udaipur before Deogarh.
• Chokha: Bagta's son, trained at the Udaipur court under Maharana Bhim Singh, whose work at Deogarh became freer and more personal than anything he painted in the capital.
• Baijnath: Chokha's son, who carried the style into the later nineteenth century, with influences from Nathdwara and Jaipur.

The countryside around Deogarh

How Deogarh lives, and what it makes

• Stone country: the town is known for quarries and polishing workshops that cut granite and marble for floors and temples across India.
• Men's dress: older men wear a white dhoti and kurta with a bright turban, often a saffron or patterned safa, tied the local way.
• Women's dress: a long ghaghra skirt, a fitted bodice and an odhni, the veil-scarf drawn across the face in front of elders.
• Signs of marriage: silver anklets and thick ivory-coloured bangles, now usually plastic, in many families.
• Reading the colours: our guide to Rajasthani dress and textiles explains them.
• Not a shopping town: we would rather you didn't come for that.
• Meet the makers instead: a painter in the old Deogarh style, a potter in a nearby village, a silversmith who makes anklets to order by weight.
• Buy directly: from people we know. Nobody in our team takes a commission, and our shopping guide explains why that matters.

Eating in Deogarh

• Kadhi: a sour yoghurt curry, on every family table.
• For grand meals: ker sangri, the desert's dried berries and beans.
• At every celebration: dal baati churma.
• Laal maas: mutton in a fierce red sauce.
• Safed maas: gentle, cooked with cream, cashews and cardamom.
• Old recipes: game-style dishes the family cooks still make, now with farm-raised meat.
• Vegetarians: eat extremely well too.
• Breakfast: poha with peanuts and lime, mirchi vada from the bazaar, or jalebis hot from the pan.
• Away from the dining room: breakfast beside a village tank, lunch at a farmhouse with the women who cooked it, or dinner on the roof with folk musicians below.
• Learn a dish: the hotel will happily teach you one or two, and our Rajasthani food guide has more.

Where to stay in and around Deogarh

When to come, and which festivals to plan around

• February and March: warm, dry and perfect for long drives.
• April to June: fierce heat. We would only bring you for a short stay with afternoons by the pool.
• July to September: the tanks fill, the Aravallis turn emerald and the train ride through the ghats is at its finest.

Getting to Deogarh

• On the way south: the shrine of Shrinathji at Nathdwara, and Kumbhalgarh a little further.
• To Jodhpur: about four to five hours across the Aravallis, on some of the prettiest hill roads in Rajasthan.
• No main-line station: guests arrive by private car, and the metre-gauge train is an excursion, not a way in.
• Where it fits: between Pushkar or Ajmer and Udaipur, with a stop at Nathdwara.
• Plan the drive: our guide to road distances and drive times.

Two days in Deogarh, the way we would spend them

• Our journeys: Deogarh features on our village Rajasthan journey, linking country palaces, rawlas and farms across Mewar and Marwar.
• Lakes and temples: it also fits beautifully into Mewar Lakes and Temples.

What we tell friends before they go

• Ask before photographing: especially women and anyone at a shrine. A smile and a gesture toward the camera is usually enough, and a no should be accepted at once.
• Say khamma ghani: the respectful Mewari greeting. Older villagers light up when you use it.
• Carry small notes: for temple offerings and tea, and give them directly rather than through a middleman.
• Read about Chokha first: standing in the hills he painted makes his pictures come alive.
• Leave space in your plans: the best moments are unplanned, a wedding procession in the lane, an invitation to a courtyard, a flock of cranes on a tank.