Maharajah Mania

As a full moon the size of a watermelon rises slowly over the battlements of the ancient Ahhichatragarh Fort in Nagaur, Rajasthan, in the distance the thrum-bidda-bidda of a tabla reverberates from the walls, the musicians’ ringed fingers striking hard on the rim of the drum.

Underneath a stone canopy by the floating pavilion an Indian feast has been laid out for 300 people. The Maharaja of Jodhpur is welcoming guests and the great and good of Delhi and Mumbai are assembling to eat, surveying a view of this ancient fortress lit by a thousand oil lamps. It is true; the Nagaur Sufi Music Festival is no Glyndebourne or Glastonbury. It is far, far better.

Founded in 2008 by His Highness Gaj Singh II, the Maharajah of Marwar-Jodhpur, the festival plays host to Sufi performers (mainly musicians, but also dancers, whirling dervishes, puppet masters and story tellers) from India, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. Sufi, as most will know, is the mystical branch of Islam, frequently frowned upon or even persecuted by the clerical authorities, it is the form of Islam which is not shy to embrace the sensual delights of music, dance, poetry and mystical, mind-altering ceremonies.

Nagaur – in Rajasthan, Northern India, a couple of hours drive from Jodhpur, known as the ‘Blue City’ – has long been known as a Sufi pilgrimage centre, and is home to several important Sufi tombs, mosques and shrines. The festival was first created by the Maharajah in memory of the Sufi Saint Nagauri to celebrate the ongoing restoration of the fort at Nagaur (Ahhichatragarh to give it its real name; don’t ask me how to pronounce it).

A remarkable desert enclave of palaces, battlements, water gardens, fountains and vast courtyards where elephant fights were once held, the fort remains, like the more famous Taj Mahal, a testament to the incredible architectural refinement of Northern India’s most recent imperial rulers before Britain’s Raj, the Mughal emperors.

The restoration of Nagaur is so remarkable that it has won the Award of Excellence for Cultural Heritage Conservation presented by Unesco and the surroundings are so out-of-this-world exotically stunning that the tented accommodation which sits inside the fort, the Royal Jodhpur Camp, was used to accommodate guests for Liz Hurley’s marriage to Arun Nayer and has been visited on more than one occasion by those global trekkers seeking inspiration, Sting and his wife Trudie Styler.

Inside the fort there is also a remarkable hotel, Ranvas, where we are lucky enough to be staying. Dating merely from the 18th century (the very oldest parts of the fort are almost 2,000 years old, even if the greater part dates from the 12th century) the previously ruined Ranvas Havelis were originally built to house in secluded splendour the wives and harem of the Mughal rulers.

Now converted into a luxury hotel, the rooms and courtyards and roof terraces still resonate with atmosphere and to spend a few days here, either during the Sufi festival or at any other time of year, is to enter an other-worldly sense of relaxation and connection with history which I have only ever experienced on a similar level by staying within the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem. Once you have stayed in Ahhichatragarh, London will forever seem a young city, like staying in Detroit after a trip to Rome.

In 2012, the festival at Nagaur (which will always remain intimately small at under 500 attendees) is to be joined by a larger world music festival in Jodhpur, running consecutively, and after staying in the remarkable Ranvas you will need an equally opulent base from which to explore the ‘Blue City’.

Returning from a day climbing the sheer battlements of the Mehrangarh Fort, from which you can look down over the city’s roofs and across the planes of Rajasthan, you should make for the grand splendour of the Balsamand Lake Palace, only eight kilometres from the city centre of Jodhpur. Seldom have grander hotel rooms been seen – ours was the size and height of two squash courts and we were told that the first person ever to stay in this room when the palace was opened as a hotel was Naomi Campbell.

The man-made lake from which the hotel takes its name was constructed in the 12th Century, the hotel itself was built by Maharaja Jaswant Singh I of Jodhpur in the 17th Century and the whole gorgeous oasis is set in over 60 acres of pleasure gardens, exotic orchards of lime and pomegranate, and water features designed to air-condition the often savage heat.

The ten suites combine to make a world-class luxury heritage hotel housed within an Indian stately home. This is Downton Abbey, re-imagined for a Maharajah.

Many visitors to Rajasthan combine a trip to Jodhpur, the ‘Blue City’ with a stay in Jaipur, the ‘Pink City’.

Opening this autumn is the Jal Mahal Palace on Man Sagar Lake in Jaipur. This former 18th Century pleasure palace of the Jaipur royal family is located between the Palace of the Winds and the Amber Fort, and was built in 1734 by Jaipur’s visionary founder, Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II.

Now, after a six-year restoration, the pleasure pavilion and surrounding lake have been restored to their former imperial glory as a cultural and arts space, hosting the first of a series of exhibitions (currently ‘Painted Pleasures: Water, Gardens & Festivals in Courtly Rajasthan’), and an 18th Century Rajput garden terrace.

Abercrombie & Kent offers a seven-night itinerary to India starting from £1,865 per person based on two people sharing and includes two nights in Delhi, three nights at Ranvas, Nagaur Fort and two nights at Balsamand Palace all on a B&B basis to include international and domestic flights, all transfers and sightseeing. For Abercrombie & Kent booking enquiries please contact 0845 618 2214 or visit abercrombiekent.co.uk

The Sufi Festival will take place in 2012 from 17-19 February in Nagaur and will extend to Jodhpur from 20-21 February; nagaursufifestival.org Jet Airways, India’s premier airline, flies daily from London Heathrow to Delhi and twice daily to Mumbai. For more information and to book call 808 101 1199 or visit jetairways.com