Any place that serves tea in mugs the size of watering holes can have me at first sip. But I had a warm feeling about Sariska’s Kushalgarh Lodge long before they plied me with bottomless cups of tea. It was something about their logo, I think. Blue-grey rectangles in the image of the 95-year-old hunting lodge tickled in the belly by a squiggle where its airy veranda is held up by arches. No sun, no moon, no forbidding coat of arms. Just a small blue blob and a certain lightness of being.
Primed for a good time, therefore, I arrived in Kushalgarh — practically flying over the new highway that now connects Dharuhera (beyond Manesar) to Alwar — on a sunny winter’s day. The denuded Aravalis in the backdrop were woolly in the afternoon haze. The jungle babblers, chasing each other noisily from tree to tree and alarming the baby monkey recently rescued by the staff, showed no signs of piping down. The lodge — glorious in muted pastels against the freshly mowed lawns and canvas tents pitched around it — was busying itself with lunch arrangements. Yet the gentle, steady buzz was having the opposite effect on me. Sinking deeper into my sun-warmed chair, I was beginning to unplan all the plans made on the way here. Plans of excursions to the forts of Bhangarh, Ajabgarh and Kankwari, where Aurangzeb imprisoned his brother Dara Shikoh; Akbar’s hunting lodge in Bairat, also the site of the thirteenth year in exile of the Pandavas and Ashokan inscriptions — all within an hour’s radius of Kushalgarh. Even the customary prowl in Sariska’s Tiger Reserve, on whose very edge the lodge teeters, was readily pushed to “Tomorrow!”
The one thing that couldn’t be put on hold was hunger. So I sat down in a white wicker chair by the pool to a homey lunch of dal, paneer, fritters of baingan and chicken, and a steady supply of naans and rotis off the tandoor. Also on the table were some fantastic red chilli and garlic pickles. But since it is a great yardstick — at least in North India — to judge the culinary competence of a kitchen, I paid close attention to my peeli dal. Far from an also-ran, it held its own quite remarkably in its restrained livery of spices. In fact, in all the meals over the next two days — they serve Rajasthani and quasi-Continental too — overkill was never on the menu.
Aided by charming prospects — of rocky hills, mustard fields and rain-fed rivulets inhabited by crocs and migratory birds — duly revealed by verandas and terraces, quaint chhatris and gardens, this former hunting lodge of the Maharani of Alwar also surprises its guests with a colourful skylight here and a quirky old well there in its seven acres. The rooms are painted in princessly pastels, but a lick of indigo in the niches or jolly Jaipuri-printed cement tiling on the floors prevents the eyes from glazing over. Even the tent I spent a night in was balanced in whites and brights, its milky interiors embellished with self-coloured phulkari, the bed draped in rich primaries. In a quiet corner were three kingfishers stencilled in gold on the wall; three others ‘perched’ on a shelf in the bathroom.
Clearly a labour of love, the stencils appeared both in obvious and unlikely places. And like the framed dogs, butterflies and vintage cars in the common sitting area, gave away a little something about owner Bawa Jay Singh, his sister Sia and her husband Fateh. They also told me how involved a process it was for the family to turn around this rundown lodge, spattered with bat shit and overrun by shrubbery until late 2010. There were bonfire tales of the year the young proprietor fixed every leak, every trickle. And if he has come a long way from the cold nights in a sleeping bag and Maggi cooked in water heated with immersion rods, there are new curveballs Jay must brace for in the first year of operations — and fifty shades of guests to tackle.
Most visitors to Kushalgarh come here with the express purpose of roaming the wilds of Sariska. So I finally headed off next afternoon — not without my picnic basket — for a safari (there’s one in the early morning too). Amusing myself by spotting migratory birds and game — cheetal and sambhar, nilgai and wild boar — I was prepared for disappointment on the big cat front. In a park over 866 sq km, surely nine tigers hardly raise a purr? But I hadn’t accounted for the radio collars that battle the park’s notoriety as a poaching ground. Hotfooting on the heels of the antennae-bearing rangers, I crouched by a tank to wait for a pair of Royal Bengals. But with darkness closing in, the jeep made an about-face — and there it was… Not the tigers we were after, but a shy, glorious leopard that stopped us smack in our dirt tracks. Luck had crossed my path and I had finally earned my stripes as the resident of a hunting lodge in Sariska.
The information
Where: Kushalgarh–Narainpur Road, Sariska; 185km/4 hours from Delhi and 25km/0.5 hours from Alwar.
Accommodation: 2 double rooms in the lodge, 12 tents with en-suite bath and sit-out
Tariff: Rs 15,000 (rooms) and Rs 10,000 (tents), including meals and taxes
Contact: 9999919861, kushalgarh.com