The Amar Mahal Palace was commissioned by Raja Amar Singh in the 19th century and was designed by a French architect to resemble a French chateau. The royal family lived here, Maharaja Hari Singh was born here before they moved out. The queen Tara Devi lived in the palace until 1967.
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| Amar Mahal Palace |
The Amar Mahal Palace has now been converted into a museum and a cultural arts centre donated by Karan Singh to the Hari-Tara Charitable Trust.
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| Maraja Hari Singh, Maharani Tara Devi and Dr Karan Singh |
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| Collection of books |
The entry to the palace is magnificent with vast drive ways, a large beautifully landscaped orchard, and then well manicured gardens until we see the palace on the left, standing on the top of a hillock looking over the river Tawi. When we visited, the gardens were filled with school children playing, and it was such a lovely sight to see such nice places being opened to children - most times they are restricted from playing.
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| Royal clothes |
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| Nataraja |
The entry fees was 100 bucks for the ground floor and 150 bucks for both and despite me telling the guy to give me the 150 buck ticket he gave me a 100 buck one so we took it. At each room of the palace is a well trained guide who guides us through the interesting parts of the room.
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| View of the valley |
The first room had pictures and scrolls with the history of the Dogra kings. There were also fine clothes worn by the ladies of yester years on display.
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| 120 kg gold throne |
In the second room there were many artifacts, a Nataraja, several books written by Dr Karan Singh, sculptures and so on. The upper floor apparently has a library with 25000 antique books.
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| Back view |
We stepped out of that room on to the corridor from which one had a fabulous view of the river Tawi and the city on the other side. The lawns behind made for such a pretty setting that one can imagine the royals having tea in these lawns in those yesteryears.
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| Lawns overlooking the Tawi |
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| Back view of the palace |
The next room had some paintings and then the most interesting piece of work - a 120 kg gold throne. It is secured and has a guard obviously.
Further down were two rooms filled with paintings with Kashmiri themes.
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| Jyo and Chattu in front of the palace |
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| Maharaja Gulab Singh's statue |
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| School children playing |
Beside Amar Mahal there are newer constructions which are now let out as hotels and we could see that there was a wedding going on.
We walked out and saw a statue of Maharaja Gulab Singh in the park. We watched the kids play around for a bit and then left. Beautiful.
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