THE RAJBARI BAWALI
For the restored aesthetics
A two-hour drive from Kolkata brings you to the hamlet of Bawali, where the once-crumbling, 300-year-old Mondal family home has been carefully restored by its present owner, the Kolkata-based businessman Ajay Rawla. Master masons from Murshidabad were sent to the Aga Khan Foundation to train in limewashing and brick-moulding, while simultaneously, consulting with experts from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) during the seven-year restoration period. The result is an artfully crafted heritage resort that feels intimate with just the right amount of distressed accents that blend, rather than clash with the feel of the mansion.
You’ll feel decadent, waking up to the cackle of geese from the pond facing your room, soaking in a brass bathtub, and settling down with a book on a castiron bench outside, occasionally looking up to admire how the sun hits the exposed brick walls of the original mansion building. Rawal has designed several spots of contemporary glamour and quirk—an eclectic vintage bar offering a 180° view of the courtyard, a winter pavilion near the pool for barbecue nights, and a Bluthner Grand piano in the salon next to an Instagram-worthy private dining room. The latter is ensconced in a striking thakurdalan, designed for long siestas after devouring the zamindar thali.
The experiences are thoughtfully curated, beginning with Bhutanese healing treatments at the spa and sandhya aarti conducted every evening in Sanskrit (with English translation) by a dhoti-kurta clad Samar Mondal, on the steps of the thakurdalan. The chatty septuagenarian, a direct descendent of the mansion’s original owners, is often game for accompanying small groups into the village. Treat this as a great opportunity to travel back in time. Amongst the ruins of the 175-year-old Gopinath Jiu and the Jaltuni Bagan—once a venue for music and dance performances for royalty—an iron bridge leads to a jal tungi (gazebo) standing in melancholic splendour in the middle of a pond and surrounded by water hyacinth.