PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG PRINCE

MANAVENDRA PRATAP SINGH OF ALWAR IS WORKING TO RESTORE HIS FAMILY'S MAJESTIC FORT IN BUNDI AND ITS ART, LAUNCHING BOUTIQUE HOTELS, WITH A PASSION FOR SHOOTING, ANGLING, SWORDS AND MOTORCYCLES.

- BY PRIYA KUMARI RANA PHOTOGRAPH BY SANJAY RAWAT

IT'S NOT EVERY DAY that one meets a young man so passionate about art and architectural renovation, and preservation of ancient royal edifices. But then, dapper and lean, INSEAD-educated Yuvraj Manavendra Pratap Singh of Alwar is the modern descendant of one of India's most multifaceted and stylish royals, Maharaja Jey Singh Prabhakar of Alwar.

While Manavendra is busy renovating the chowks (courtyards) and mahals in his family's stepwell- and painting-filled fortress, the Garh Palace of Bundi, near Kota in Rajasthan, he's also looking at ways to turn his palaces and havelis into boutique hotels. Add to that, a love of wildlife, angling, and pistol-shooting, and here's a portrait of a prince with old-world passions that he wants to drive into the modern age, for the benefit of tourism-driven development in his home state.

In fact, Manavendra is always on the move, shuttling between Alwar, his family's Phool Bagh Palace, his parents' home in New Delhi, working on his family's fort in Bundi, and Mussoorie, where the family vacations in a beautiful bungalow inherited from his grandmother Princess Mahendra Kumari of Bundi (who became Maharani of Alwar).

"All three of us (his sisters, princesses Manavi and Janaki) are national-level shooters (the 10 m pistol) as are mom and dad," says Manavendra, son of Maharaja Jitendra Singh of Alwar, a member of the Congress party, and Maharani Ambika Singh.

A JEWEL-LIKE PALACE IN BUNDI

It was while he was still in school, at the age of 17, that Manavendra got involved with renovation projects at Bundi. Historically, the kingdom of Bundi branched off into another kingdom—Kota by the Chambal river, in 1631, at the peak of the Mughal empire. And it was Manavendra's great-grandfather Maharao Bahadur Singh of Bundi (a Military Cross awardee during WW2) who really put Bundi on the map.