At Home With Royalty: Jai Vilas Palace With the Gwalior Royal Family

“There are around 200 permanent employees and another 200 rotating,” a staff member says matter-of factly. I catch myself doing the maths—that’s nearly 400 people to run a single residence. Then again, this is no ordinary residence. I’m in Gwalior, at one of the city’s most iconic addresses: Jai Vilas Palace. My hosts are Maharani Priyadarshini Raje Scindia and Yuvraj Mahanaaryaman Scindia, the mother–son duo from the royal family of Gwalior.

From where I stand, the Jai Vilas Palace is a museum of rare European craftsmanship, dating back to 1874, when Maharaja Jayajirao Scindia of the Maratha Empire’s Scindia dynasty commissioned it. The three storeyed, 300-room palace sees throngs of guests enter its doors every day. Its west and south wings were converted into a museum in 1964 by Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia, in memory of her husband, Maharaja Jiwajirao Scindia, the last ruling monarch of Gwalior. The museum now offers glimpses into a world of rosewood furniture, Bohemian chandeliers, crystal mirrors, Southeast Asian objets d’art, and paintings by Indian and European masters.

At its heart, though, it remains a family home. The Scindias are among the few princely families in India who continue to inhabit their ancestral residence in full, with its sprawling darbars and private salons still in active use.

“There’s never a day or night where you could ever be lonely when you’re [at Jai Vilas Palace],” says the mother. The son continues, “It’s always fun! There are moments when [my friends and I] are just playing hide-and-seek or running around the corridors.” Almost three decades in, his inner child is still very much alive. But beneath the mischief lies a deeper awareness of where he comes from, and what that lineage represents.

Having done his schooling in Dehradun and his education at Yale University, his awareness of lineage, although present, remained abstract for long. “I didn’t really spend much time in my hometown, whether it was as a child or in my teens,” he admits. “So, I never really got the opportunity to experience [the royalty] side of it.”

That shifted after college, when close friends encouraged him to return to Gwalior and spend time at the palace.

And thus began a new chapter, where he learned to balance life as both heir and host. “Rediscovering Gwalior in my own way—whether outdoors or indoors, or its people, or while showing my friends around—gave me a sense of responsibility of what the legacy really is.”

For the queen mother, legacy wasn’t exactly new. Born into the Gaekwad–Maratha royal family of Baroda and married into Gwalior’s Scindia lineage, Maharani Priyadarshini Raje Scindia is no stranger to the royal life. I soon learn that understanding a legacy is one thing; living it is quite another.

“I was lucky in the sense that I come from a Maratha family as well, like my husband and my mother-in-law,” she says. “My mother is Nepali, so we had a lot going for us. However, of course, like in everyone’s personal families, we have our own values, and our own ways of how we function and contribute.”

She pauses, reflective. “It really has to do with what the value system is and how you understand it, how you adapt to it, and how you bring your own twist to it. Because everything evolves with time, and every woman who comes in brings in her own ideas or experiences to create her own family unit.”

“Accepting, adopting, understanding before we change rules and regulations is also an important part of that process,” she continues. “So, it’s never quick, and it’s never easy.”

That understanding didn’t come overnight, and neither did the changes she would eventually set in motion. Over the years, Priyadarshini Raje Scindia has led a meticulous restoration of the Jai Vilas Palace. As its trustee and patron, she has overseen efforts including architectural mapping, structural consolidation, waterproofing, and the development of new gallery spaces, visitor amenities and interpretive signage systems.

The same instinct for preservation underpins Aaranya, a private label launched by her to spotlight and support India’s craft communities, with a particular focus on artisans in and around Madhya Pradesh. Each piece offers a blend of Deccan cultural codes, Maratha era iconography, and motifs drawn from the Scindia legacy—reimagined through a contemporary, design forward lens. Local craftsmanship sits at the heart of every silhouette, with an emphasis on fine materials, slow production, and conscious intent.

For me, it’s the locally woven Chanderi silk sari and the hand-block Chanderi anga shirt that take the spotlight. For the Scindias, it’s all about intent and lasting impact. And for the prince, that impact must be earned, not assumed.

“We’re all living pretty much normal lives in that sense and building our own identities outside this whole portrait of coming from a royal family,” he says. In fact, for this young man, it’s not a matter of being into royalty at all. Rather, “I take it as being born into a legacy that involves public service, which, in nation-building, means taking care of things, and being sensitive to the people and cultures around you.”

For this, his focus is firmly on entrepreneurship— building companies from scratch, and navigating the grind like any modern founder. “It’s important to set an example, especially for youngsters, to show that even though you come from a particular background, you’ve still got to work hard and build your own identity,” he says.

It’s a refreshing sentiment, especially when spoken from within a 300-room palace. But that contrast is precisely what defines this generation of royals. This crop of crowns is grounded in legacy, rather than being weighed down by it. “The one thing that comes to mind when you think of our family is impact and public service,” he says, as though cementing the idea of what modern-age royalty stands for. “I always keep that at the back of my head.”

It’s quite a heavy burden to live with, I ponder out loud. After all, how does one navigate the weight of legacy while also carving out their own?

He pauses for a beat before responding. “It’s obviously not easy to deal with,” he says. “But it motivates you to do better. You hear from people, you witness things first-hand and it pushes you to do better and aim bigger.”

It’s the kind of answer that could easily veer into ‘sound bite’ territory. But with the Mahanaaryaman Scindia, the sentiment is lived—whether he’s building a company from the ground up (such as with Kuberha, an AI-powered digital billing app, of which he is the co-founder along with Suryansh Rana), promoting sports in the region (as chairman of the Madhya Pradesh League, the official T20 cricket league for the state of Madhya Pradesh; and as vice president of the Gwalior Division Cricket Association); or advocating for education as a member of the board of governors at The Scindia School and Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya in Gwalior.

With so many roles to juggle, I ask: Who really are the Scindias?

On paper, they’re one of India’s most storied royal families— warriors of the Maratha Empire, custodians of a palace steeped in legacy, descendants of statesmen, and patrons of art, design and sport. But here at the Jai Vilas Palace, the answer is simply summed up as leaders with impact.

The family quickly corrects me: it’s leadership, but not in the conventional sense. “I don’t think the leadership is what it is,” clarifies Priyadarshini Raje Scindia. “I think it’s being able to connect and being able to represent.” She continues, “To know that there are people you’re actually making a direct impact on—getting people medical appointments, getting people to places they want to go or need to get to, getting their children married and settled, education, sports…”

Mahanaaryaman, meanwhile, channels that same philosophy into a more grounded, purpose-driven daily life. “I wake up in the morning, I work out, and then I go to the chhatri to see the progress on the shopping complex that we’re building. Next, I check on the fields where we grow local produce.” Amid all this, he discusses the commercial aspects of his multiple ventures. It’s evident, then, that his lineage isn’t just a formal position of power. Rather, it stems from an urge to get his hands dirty.

So, what is royal life then in 2025?

It’s certainly not pageantry—or not in this household, at least. It’s a balance of privilege and participation. It’s morning meetings and evening strategy calls that spill into dinner table conversations—all unfolding under chandeliers that have witnessed centuries. “Living here, there’s never a moment of loneliness,” the queen reminisces. “The stories, the people, the families…they’re all around.”

At Jai Vilas, the palace is the backdrop. The life, unmistakably, is real.

See the video:

Photography: Nishanth Radhakrishnan
Assisted By: Ajay Singh
Styled By: Tania Alfonso Fadte
Assisted By: Ankur Singh
Makeup By: Chandni Singh

Bookings Editor: Varun Shah
Hair By: Zakir Hussain
Production: Aritra Mukherjee
Location: Jai Vilas Palace, Gwalior