Burning Bright

Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur is the scion of one of the world's oldest royal dynasties. He is also an excellent barista and has a penchant for miniature cars and trains.

- PRIYA KUMARI RANA

IT'S A HOT SUMMER DAY at Udaipur's three-kilometer-long, four century-old royal palace complex set against Lake Pichola. It houses luxury hotels like the Shiv Niwas Palace and Taj Fateh Prakash Palace; the royal family's residence, Shambhu Niwas; and the sprawling City Palace, made with white marble and granite, with its labyrinth of rooms with glass-covered walls. We move from one carved and delicately arched room, from the faded miniature-painting-strewn rooms of the formidable Sisodia rulers of Mewar at the City Palace-now a museum swarming with European tourists-to the palatial, double-storey living room-bar of the Shiv Niwas with a large Venetian crystal chandelier crowning it. Beneath a gigantic 1901 Raja Ravi Varma painting of his ancestor-the fierce Rajput king Maharana Pratap in full battle regalia-Maharaj Kumar Sahib Lakshyaraj Singhji Mewar of Udaipur, dressed in a black achkan, with a rani pink paag (turban) decorated with a diamond sirpech, and pink pagarkis (shoes), is looking down tenderly at the upturned face of his five-year-old son, Bhanwar Baojiraj Sahib Haritraj Singh Mewar.