Monsoon Palace (Sajjangarh)

The air changes as you climb. Down in Udaipur, the streets are warm and close, full of horns, temple bells, and the smell of frying snacks. Up here, the wind moves freely across the ridge. It carries dry grass, dust, and sometimes the faint call of a bird from the scrub below. Under your feet, the stone is pale and smooth. Ahead of you, a white palace stands alone on the hilltop, facing the sky.

This is the Monsoon Palace, known locally as Sajjangarh. The second name comes from the man who ordered it built: Maharana Sajjan Singh, a ruler of Mewar in the late nineteenth century. Mewar was one of the oldest Rajput kingdoms of Rajasthan. Its rulers carried the title Maharana and governed from the City Palace you can see far below, on the edge of Lake Pichola. Construction here began in the 1880s, on a hill in the Aravalli range, one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth.

Why build a palace so high and so far from the court? The answer is in the name. In this part of India, the year turns around the monsoon. Months of heat and dust end when heavy clouds roll in from the southwest. For farmers, for wells, for the lakes of Udaipur, those rains decide everything. Sajjan Singh wanted a place where he could watch the clouds gather over the hills and arrive above his city.

Here is the first surprise. According to accounts of the palace's origins, the Maharana also planned it as a kind of observatory. He wanted a high point to follow the weather and the sky. It was meant to be a place of study as well as pleasure. That plan was never fully realised. Sajjan Singh died young, soon after work began. His successor, Maharana Fateh Singh, completed the palace, and its later life took a different direction.

In the years that followed, the building served mainly as a retreat and a hunting lodge for the royal family. The forested hills around it were rich with wildlife. Royal hunts were a central part of court life in Rajput kingdoms. Today the hills form the Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected area. On the drive up, keep an eye on the slopes. Deer, wild boar, and many kinds of birds live in this dry forest.

Now look at the palace itself. It is built mostly in white marble and pale stone, so it glows against the brown hills. You can see it from many points in the city, especially in the evening. The design is typical of Rajput palace architecture. There are domed pavilions on the roof, called chhatris — small umbrella-shaped kiosks on slender pillars. There are arched balconies, deep windows, and tall towers that catch the light.

The palace was designed with the rains in mind in another way too. Like many old buildings in Rajasthan, it was planned to collect and store rainwater. In a dry region, water was precious, and builders used roofs and channels to guide rain into storage below. Look at the edges of the roof and the shape of the courtyard. They are not only decorative. They were also part of a practical answer to life in a land of long dry seasons.

Here is the second surprise. In 1983, this palace appeared in a James Bond film, Octopussy. Much of that film was shot in Udaipur. In the story, the hilltop palace serves as the home of the villain, an exiled Afghan prince. Many visitors walk through these rooms without knowing it. If you have seen the film, the outline of the towers may feel strangely familiar.

Step to the edge of the terrace and look down. On a clear day, the whole valley opens below you. You can see lakes, white buildings, and green patches of trees between them. Udaipur is often called the City of Lakes. From here you can understand why. The lakes are mostly artificial, built over centuries by the rulers of Mewar to store water. Look for Fateh Sagar and Lake Pichola, with the long white line of the City Palace on its shore.

The hills around you show how the city grew. Udaipur sits in a bowl of the Aravalli range. Those ridges gave the city natural protection, which mattered to the Mewar rulers. Their earlier capital at Chittorgarh suffered famous sieges in past centuries. A city ringed by hills and lakes was much easier to defend. From this height, you can trace the ridgelines with your eye and see how they wrap around the valley.

The palace interior is fairly simple today. Do not expect lavish furnished rooms like those at the City Palace. Some areas show old photographs and information about the building and its history. Much of the pleasure here is in the spaces themselves: the cool shade of arches, the breeze through open windows, and the frames each window makes around the landscape. Walk slowly. Notice how the view changes from one balcony to the next.

Most people come here in the late afternoon and stay for sunset. As the sun drops behind the hills, the white stone turns gold, then pink, then soft grey. Below you, the lakes catch the last light, and the city lamps begin to appear one by one. Then the palace itself is lit up, and people in the old city look up and see it shining on its ridge. If you visit during the monsoon, you may see exactly what the Maharana hoped to see: dark clouds moving slowly across the hills.

Before you go, stand still for a moment. Feel the wind on your face and listen. You may hear voices from the terrace, the click of cameras, perhaps a bird in the trees below. Look out once more at the lakes and the far ridges. More than a century ago, a young ruler chose this hill to watch the rains arrive. As you walk back down, turn around once. The palace will still be there, white against the sky, watching the valley.