THE ROYAL TOUCH

Young royal family scions who are out to make the world a better place — and how

- PRIYA KUMARI RANA

REBEL PRINCESS WITH A CAUSE Akshita M. Bhanj Deo Of Mayurbhanj

She is using her palace-turned-boutique hotel as an artists’ retreat and a platform to reach out to the local community

Armed with a degree in Politics and Human Rights from Bard College, working as a consultant with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) non-profit and using her ancestors’ jewellike palace in Mayurbhanj, Odisha, as a springboard of hospitality and creativity impacting lives of marginalised local communities, 27-year-old Princess Akshita M. Bhanj Deo of Mayurbhanj is a role model for her generation of erstwhile royals.

She is also doubling up as a Director of Belgadia Palace, her family home in Baripada, Mayurbhanj district. The “Wes Anderson-esque” Palace (picture the candy-coloured palette of his film, The Grand Budapest Hotel), which she describes as perfectly symmetrical and sitting on 20 acres, is done up in sorbet pastel colours, with nostalgic touches and quaint memorabilia. But it’s the history of Belgadia Palace – one of three that belonged to the Mayurbhanj royals, the first donated to the Bengal government (it became a vocational institute in Kolkata) and the second in Shillong that became India’s only IIM in the North-East – that speaks of a love story so great that it became one of Akshita’s biggest inspirations.