THE OBEROI RAJGARH PALACE KHAJURAHO

A 350-year-old palace in the heart of central India comes back to life

- Salil Deshpande

About 30 minutes from Khajuraho Airport, you leave the highway to turn to a country road, past cattle, chicken coops and other markers of village life till you get your first view of what is arguably the most spectacular hotel opening in India in recent months.

The Oberoi Rajgarh Palace appears like a post-Impressionist subject, its beige crown backdropped by the freckled green of the Maniyagarh Hills. It is from here that the Chandela royalty presided over the region: a temple town rich with art, and a forest full of emeralds and tigers.

The palace has a long tryst with stories that flow right into the 20th century. Rajgarh was commissioned as a fort about 350 years ago by Bundela king Raja Hindupat Singh, who also built the Jugal Kishore Ji Temple. But it was Chandela king Maharaja Chhatrasal who turned it into a palace when he set up his capital in Panna. A local seer told him of a forest full of emeralds, or panna—sage advice that paid off quite well for the maharaja.

But history is no patch on mythology and as we walk through the gates, Shukla-ji, the local raconteur, tells us the origin story of the Chandela dynasty. A priest got his lunar calendar wrong, and his daughter had to make good by invoking the Moon god for a fortnight of conjugal bliss. That produced an offspring that would go on to rule the region. It's quite the first impression—a story for the ages narrated as we walk past a glorious ruin with a shock of pink bougainvillea.