It’s a lovely winter’s day in her Gwalior residence but you’ll find Priya Raje Scindia indoors instead, in her favourite part of her home at the Jai Vilas Palace — the museum.
For this is where she’s planning children’s programmes and exhibitions, or the Usha Kiran palace restorations that she’s doing with a team of experts.
While it’s a full day’s schedule from 9.30am to 7pm, a week’s work later she flies to her Delhi residence to be with husband Jyotiraditya and then back again. And that’s just part of the schedule in the life of the Scindia daughter-in-law who admits to straddling her worlds with ease.
Tell her she’s re-constructing the concept of the life that a princess leads, and she grins. “I don’t think I could be idle,” she says. “Both my parents (father Sangram Sinh Gaekwad of the royal family of Baroda and mother Asha Raje, a Nepalese princess) have always worked and I have never grown up with the concept that my life has to just revolve around the house. Plus, baba (father-in-law Madhavrao Scindia) was a very progressive person; he felt his son needed someone who would do her own thing, so for me living in a palace is a full-time job.”
It’s also her first real project after getting married. “I was just 20 when my son was born and for a few years I just wanted to get to know the family better,” she says. After a two-year stint in the US, she and her husband settled into a life in Mumbai and then the passing away of Madhavrao Scindia changed things for them.
“Baba’s death was a very difficult time emotionally,” she admits. “We had to chart our lives onto a different path, butJyotiraditya and I are always up for a good challenge, so we just moved with the flow.” It is also her husband who is her greatest support. “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without him. Gwalior’s a small town and they are not used to women coming out and working, but luckily I had no opposition. My mother-in-law also realised that this is the person I was.”
While she shuttles between Delhi and Gwalior, she’s gotten more selective about her leisure too. In fact, Priya isn’t someone you’d find at every high-society soiree in the capital. “Of course, if it’s Raghu’s show (cousin Raghavendra Rathore) we attend. You know, since Jyotiraditya’s got into full-time politics it’s been so tough for him to snatch away time; I think that’s made a 360-degree change with our weekends.”
And every chance they can, they prefer to unwind with their children, son Aaryaman and daughter Ananya. “Jyotiraditya insists we see a different country every year as he wants the kids to be exposed to a variety of cultures.”
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