A Return to the Umaid Mahal - July 10, 2012

I wrote about this special heritage hotel in my blog of January 31, 2012 -
http://rnsane.blogspot.in/2012/02/my-first-day-in-jaipur-rajasthan-india.html#links -
after my three day visit there. I just couldn't resist going back again,
especially when I checked out the incredible off season rates. Ajay
Singh Shekhawat, the front desk manager, and I had become friends
so I called him to book a two day stay and was warmly greeted by many
staff I remembered. I checked into a beautiful room with a canopied bed
and gleaming black marble floor. I couldn't have felt more luxurious and
regal!


What was nice about this visit that I didn't get to use in January was the
lovely rooftop restaurant. Even during the brief periods of rain, it was so

nice dining up there, enjoying the coolness of the evenings. I just regret
that I never had an inheritance or lottery winnings that permit me the
luxury of spending the rest of my days alternating between life at the Umaid
Mahal or cruising on a Royal Caribbean ship. I'm really going to work on
that in my next life!

Ajay Singh Shekkawat, front desk manager

Keeping the brass shiny

Shrine to Hindu goddess, Durga, at reception

Lobby reception area

Lobby guards

Rooftop dining

Chai break with Ajay

Cloudy Jaipur skies

Laughing All the Way to the Bank - Magpie Tales, Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Laughing All the Way to the Bank - Magpie Tales, Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Sarah climbed the stairs of the small farmhouse to her aunt’s bedroom, feeling
incredibly weary. It had been a long day and she felt so alone and bereft. Her aunt
had been her only living relative. She hadn’t been ill a day in her life and, suddenly,
without warning, her heart stopped beating as she slept in the bedroom where she’d
spent every night for the past sixty years. Sarah had gotten the call while she was
making rounds at St. Mark’s Hospital where she was a second year surgery resident.

She arranged to take a week’s leave and went home to make arrangements. Old Mr.
Jeffries, her aunt’s attorney, told her that the old farmhouse, paid in full, and all her aunt’s possessions had been left to her. There was no money, really, other than the small trust
Sarah’s parents had left when they were killed in a car accident when Sarah was ten.

The following morning, dawned bright and sunny and Sarah began to take an

inventory of the house. She would not sell it. She loved its bright cheeriness and the

lovely furnishings and it had been her home for over eighteen years. Tears stung her

eyes as she thought of her aunt, busy in the kitchen, baking wonderful cakes and

cookies and showering her niece with love. It would be a struggle to keep the farmhouse

and to pay the taxes on it but, once she finished her residency, she would be able to

afford it. She wanted to practice in town where her father had been a physician and

the farm was only a short commute. And it would be a wonderful place to raise children,

she thought, touching the diamond on her finger.

Upstairs in the bedroom, she looked at the old white trunk, wondering what was inside.
It was locked. Where was the key? She looked on the dresser and in the drawers,
without success. The lock was old and quite rusted. The trunk itself was of rough
wood, and sat in a corner of the room. Sarah thought that, perhaps, she could use
a screwdriver to break the lock. It was then that she noticed the red velvet ribbon
hanging on a hook inside her aunt’s closet. Dangling at the end of it was an old rusty
key. After several tries, the key turned the lock. Sarah lifted the creaking lid. It
seemed that the trunk held old dressing gowns. She lifted the top one away, then
gave a gasp, grabbing at the other. There before her, were stacks and stacks
of money, twenty dollar bills, tied in packets of five hundred dollars. When she
was finally finished counting, she realized she was two hundred thousand dollars
richer than she was when she started.

I am participating in Willow's Magpie Tales