Everyone thinks they know what the Udaipur City Palace looks like. Its 450-year-old façade, rising in tiers above Lake Pichola, makes it to every travel or photo feature on Rajasthan. For many, it has become shorthand for “royal India”. After all, the imposing structure has been standing tall since 1553 CE, after Maharana Udai Singh II moved his capital from embattled Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh to these foothills. Since then, the complex has grown under successive Maharanas, each adding courtyards, pavilions, and vantage points—presumably to mirror the expanding ethos of Mewar. By the time the Mardana Mahal (men’s quarters) and Zenana Mahal (women’s quarters) were formally declared a public museum in 1969, Maharana Bhagwat Singh Mewar had already handed it over to the newly formed Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation. And with this small gesture came a grand move: the transformation of the private royal seat into what is today one of India’s most visited heritage institutions.
My visit on one hot afternoon is proof of this public craze. My team and I are forced to wedge ourselves between the swarming crowds. Each passageway is crammed and each doorway is framed by faces flushed with the heat. Everywhere you look, there’s a person posing for the perfect shot, while simultaneously dodging an accidental poke in the face. Spaces such as the Mor Chowk, the Dilkhush Mahal, and the Amar Vilas terraces remain consistently occupied by groups listening to guides recount key dates, architectural details, and dynastic history.
I overhear one such tale. According to the guides, the museum holds the living legacy of the House of Mewar, considered one of the world’s oldest-serving dynasties. Believed to be suryavanshis, or direct descendants of the sun, members of the Mewar royal family claim to share the same lineage as Hindu deity Rama from his son Lava’s side. This lineage forms the core of the museum’s narrative and threads his way through its collections.
The City Palace Museum, today, encompasses more than 40,000 artefacts across categories including sculpture, painting, silver, textiles, arms and armour, ceremonial objects, and photographic archives. Sculptures range from early-medieval Hindu and Jain icons found in and around Mewar, while the photographic collection documents the region and the royal family from the mid-19th century onwards, including albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, and handcoloured works.
But I’m here to look beyond the palace’s public persona—I’m here to understand it straight from the perspective of the 77th custodian of the House of Mewar: Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar. At his private residence, tucked away in the peripheries of the public space, the buzz of the crowds has settled, while the stories linger.
“Growing up, one was exceptionally privileged to have the amount of [space] one had to be able to play hide and seek,” he tells me, motioning to a hall where he says he once ran around as a three- or four-year-old. “I think that has been my greatest joy!”
Humble, I think to myself, given that he has nine Guinness World Records for his environmental and charitable initiatives. Although he does intensive work for the community, I can’t help but notice how Shriji — as he is fondly called—is as much a family man as he is a philanthropist. Inside his living room—a space he introduces with a casual “welcome to my living room”— the family’s narrative is instantly visible.
Portraits, competition trophies, and personal memorabilia sit alongside archival photographs. He points to one: a photograph of his grandfather with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former first lady of the United States, during her 1962 visit to India.
“What one doesn’t realise is the amount of effort that went into getting Udaipur on the world map,” he says. But when the conversation turns to Udaipur in the present day—not the Udaipur of film sets or glossy postcards, but the city as he experiences it—he smiles.
“I think, first and foremost, there is gratitude; being grateful for what your ancestors and forefathers have done. Today, [one has] the opportunity to take it to the next level based on the platform that they created,” he says, adding, “I think the evolution of the city has been exceptionally natural. I think it’s taken a lot of things in its stride; how a duck takes to water.”
Ask him what Udaipur means to him and the answer is immediate: “Udaipur is at its best. Lakes are full and brimming. And we’re doing what we enjoy doing—sharing our homes with the rest of the world.”
The idea of “home” is a recurring theme in our conversation. “I think home is the area that I enjoy most. More than a physical spot, I enjoy its emotional spot,” he says. “Being with family, my children— whether physically or not—matters to me more.”
Even when the topic moves to his memories of studying away from Udaipur, the city’s emotional pull becomes clear.
“Being away from home was always a challenge,” he says, recalling his years in Ajmer and, later, Australia. Distance, he explains, sharpened his appreciation for everything he’d left behind. “Sometimes when you go away a little bit, it gives you perspective to focus, understand and, hopefully come back a better person.”
That perspective shapes the way he speaks about the palace. “There are parts of it that are as they were 400 to 450 years ago,” Shriji says, emphasising the balance between preservation and public access. “And there are parts of it that have obviously grown as the family has grown. I think this has always been the sense of evolution, the sense of relevance, and the sense of relatability that I keep talking about.”
He says while the structure is centuries-old, the story of his legacy has to speak to every new generation. “We’re custodians, not owners. That mentality changes everything.”
It is a line he returns to often: the palace belongs not to an individual, but to Mewar and its people. “I think the responsibility is huge, because what one has inherited is not something that one can take lightly,” he says. “Generations before me have put in that effort, and generations after me will judge what I have done with it.”
His commitment to the future becomes even clearer when we speak about the museum’s archival strength. “These are narratives of the land, the people, and the ethos,” he shares. “Our job is to ensure the [archives] remain accessible, relevant, and rooted in authenticity. We must keep telling the story of Mewar, as that is the only way to keep it alive.”
I ask him whether the weight of this legacy ever feels overwhelming. His answer is surprisingly unburdened by external expectations. “At the end of the day, if you [work] with intent and honesty, then it feels like service,” adding, “And service is something that we have been trained in for generations. This will always be home. And, with home, there is always love, responsibility, and gratitude.”
A fitting sentiment, I think, for a custodian whose story is inseparable from the very palace that shapes Udaipur’s silhouette.
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