Shivgarh Palace and Community Empowerment Lab, Rai Bareilly

Shivgarh Palace located in the Rai Bareilley district of Uttar Pradesh hosted me recently and it was quite an honor to be there as their guest. Well it's actually the palace home of the Maharaja of Shivgarh, though now parts of it are used as school for kids and another part as office for Community Empowerment Lab (CEL). Its located at a distance of about 65 km away from Lucknow and can take anything between three to four hours based on the traffic in the city.

It was built just before independence in the year 1942. Located away from the city noise, its a perfect place to rejuvenate and revive. Of course, I was not there for any of these things - but simply for work :)

The huge ballroom now converted into a school

The palace actually has three sections - each one from a different era. The most recent section is in the front and its a beautiful white-washed palace where the king lives (or visits at sometimes with his family). This section hosts the CEL office as well as rooms for guests as well - these are huge palatial rooms, though now stripped of their gregarious past. I lived in one such room.

The second oldest part is right behind the main palace and houses the school. To me it was the most beautiful part of the palace. It's now old and also falling apart - there are multiple rooms locked and inaccessible to outsiders, though I got to walk through all of these for my photography pursuits. The school is only a small part of it... and it is actually carved out of an old and rather huge ballroom. You can easily spot a peacock taking a walk on the terrace, or a small yellow wild flower growing out of crevices on the broken tiles on the terrace. 

The oldest section is located at the far end and is almost inaccessible. It's used as a godown now and though I was keen to visit, work didn't allow me to take another break to visit that. From a distance, it looked absolutely deserted and full of stories.

On top of the most recent part of the palace

The temple seen through the balcony once used to be King's personal temple, not anymore though

The class from top - one student was easily!

Waiting outside his class...punishment?

Completely behind the old section is s rather old and famous Shiva temple and a garden for the princesses. A short walk through a trail takes you there and immediately one is taken by the beauty of the surviving structures.

The image below is from exclusive area of the queen where she used to spend time with her numerous friends - you can imagine a group of them splashing water and giggling together. Its all in the past now, but with some imagination its possible to recreate those moments in our minds. 

Just behind this area is the outer wall and beyond that are forests. Nights especially are interesting here because not only can you sometimes hear wild animals in the distance, you can also see swarms of glow-worms all around - its a sight I am unlikely to forget! I was so mesmerised by it, I even forgot to take out my camera and click them...

Queen's personal area 

I spent many nights there, sitting through the evenings and looking at the fireflies filling up the forests around. It's not possible to describe in words the memory such incidents leave on you. Or the aimless walks in the evenings when the lights go off and you walk and walk, leaving the palace and the village behind. Or the sweltering nights when you wait for the electricity to come, drenched in sweat and still enjoying the sound of numerous crickets around. So many stories of things that happened and some those didn't quite happen. Each one of these are precious and will stay with me always...

Unfortunately the palace is not accessible to general public and I can't recommend any means of getting an invite to stay here. Maybe someday it will, or perhaps it's beauty lies in its inaccessibility and exclusivity.

Shivgarh village bazaar

It was peacock season, and we could see many of them everywhere 

I was at Shivgarh hosted by the Community Empowerment Lab, run by Dr Vishwajeet Kumar and Aarti. I think it would be great to share a little about them as well here - they are doing an absolutely stellar job at reducing child and maternal mortality in Uttar Pradesh.

About Community Empowerment Lab

Community Empowerment Lab (CEL) is a community embedded scientific research and innovation organisation that works in partnership with communities at the grassroots seeking to realize their potential. Currently we work in rural Uttar Pradesh, India.

The reason CEL was founded is because we believe that innovations can actually bend the curve. Whether we are talking of bending the curve for reducing child mortality, to improve childhood education, reducing poverty, etc.

Innovations can be products, processes or social movements, to name a few but innovations have to be ‘Just’ and they have to be ‘Lasting’. It means the innovations have to impact the poorest of the poor. Such an innovation can only be found at the confluence of science and local wisdom.

-- Siddhartha Joshi