Located smack in the centre of Chanoud village, some two hours by car south of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Chanoud Gahr is no hotel, insists your hosts, but rather a home they have chosen to open for you to enjoy.
Chanoud Garh is a sumptuous and expansive mansion in the style of an old Indian fortress-palace. Its richly coloured walls and cool marble floors are set around a green court yard with a fountain, and the rooftop, now the home to pigeons and swifts and green parakeets, has wide vistas over the surrounding village and countryside. Peacocks roam the gardens surrounding the old house.
Thirteen generations and more than 300 years is how far back family tradition extends in Chanoud Garh, the beautiful home of Thakur Ajeet Singhji. For travellers, his is a special place, for where else do you get invited to share the home of nobility?
At Chanoud Garh, you quickly learn that old traditions die hard in rural India; villagers still bow in respect to the Thakur and his family, who return their gestures in recognition of the responsibility this humility confers upon them as community leaders. Relations are harmonious, even warm, but there are reminders of a less pleasant past; two images of female hands hewn into the marble pillars of the nearby Shiva temple tell that Sati – the act of burning widows alive – was practiced within this family and undoubtedly in the rest of the village not so many years ago.
In the morning, a kind retired schoolmaster with an easy smile and a fondness for story-telling takes you on a village walk. He hands out photographs of villagers and it is for you to identify these people as you make your way through the narrow streets of Chanoud. This is a hugely popular initiative by the youngest son of the Thakur. Especially the lovely children of Chanoud are eager to see if they are on the photographs, because if they are, they get to keep the picture. So they readily pose for yet more pictures in the hope that we too will send these snapshots back to Chanoud Garh; maybe they too can get a picture of themselves the next time the old school master does his rounds in the village.
In the afternoon, the Thakur’s eldest son invites you for a safari through the Chanoud country side in his lovely old jeep. He used to be an advertising executive in Mumbai, but now he devotes all his time and effort to running Chanoud Garh, undoubtedly in the knowledge that one day he will be the 14th Thakur. As he gently guides you along dirt tracks that line fields of mustard and castor, he explains about village life; how the rural economy works, the finer points of local culture and politics, and the richness of wildlife that still coexists with humans on his land.
He also talks about the many challenges faced by his community. Water shortages, land fragmentation, and abundance of plastic waste feature prominently, but his biggest concern is the excess of male cows now that tractors have arrived in Chanoud. Half of all calves born are still male, but they have no use now that tractors are here. Bulls do not produce milk and they cannot be eaten or killed or even exported under Hindu rules. So these beasts roam the village and the country side in large numbers eating precious feed crops better left for the female cows.
The safari culminates with Gin and tonic on a salt plain with a perfect view of the setting sun, reminding you that there is nothing quite as lovely in this world as the twilight of Rajasthan.
For more see https://chanoudgarh.com/
