Sir,
This refers to N.K.A. Ballal’s article titled “Is Lalitha Mahal Hotel going Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion way?” in Star of Mysore dated May 23.
It is obvious that the Government cannot take care of our heritage. To the Government, it’s all politics and photo-ops. Hence, Lalitha Mahal Palace and Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion should be returned to the erstwhile royal family.
Let’s face reality. It belongs to them. They will definitely take care of it and make better use of it too.
Pramoda Devi Wadiyar has already initiated many restoration works under ‘His Highness Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar (SDNR) Foundation’ and the iconic Rajendra Vilas Palace atop Chamundi Hill is one, the renovation works of which are in full swing and once completed, the structure will be run as a hotel like earlier.
I am amazed that our so-called Heritage Group is silent about the slow decay of the magnificent Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel. They will wake up late and then protest with a loud voice to wake up the Government to do something and nothing will be done!
– George Rego, Mysuru, 24.5.2023
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Yes I second Mr.Rego , more people should voice their opinion , that all the heritage mansions of the royal family in mysuru should be vacated and handed over to them and then they can be made into museums or leased out to private hotel groups to run small heritage hotels or beautiful restaurants .Just imagine if these mansions are restored how many more tourist attractions Mysuru will get.Like Air India if you are not able to maintain it, better to return it to the owners who will take good care of it.Waiting to see if Ministry of Culture GoI will sanction funds to restore these buildings.
An idiot called George ?Rego suggests that the buildings like Lalithamhal Palace , should be handed on to Pramoda Devi Wadiyar, the wife of the last Wadiyar SD Wadiyar, because these buildings belong to her. |The ever present fool @Kini, who is more interested in his business of tourism to collect money from the deluded so called tourists- people from neighbouring states, seconds that suggestion.
For a start, this Pramoda Devi is trying to resuurect the pathetic reputation of her late husband, who was in name only, as this SD Wadiyar in all his life was a womaniser, chasing every buxom women , he can lay his hands on. During 1970s, this SD Waditar had affairs both with the wife of a hotelier in VV Market, the hotel then known for Set Dosa and Masala Dosa, and his sister-in-law, who both squeezed this SDWadiyar enough money by threatening him that they were pregnant -a lie, and will expose him! He suffered from the STD all his life and becsme impotent. Died in Bangalore . getting treatment and hiding from Mysore! Thjis is the kind of Wadiyar that Pramoda Devi wants to glorify now!
This George Rego, thinks that the government should fund these dilapidated buildings , built under the British Raj, renovated as heritage buildings. This idiot, thinks that when people in Mysore and Karnataka are struggling with the high cost of living, this is a priority!
What this Pramoda Devi doing is deluding herself as the Maharani-she is not, as Royalty was abolished soon after independence,.
The crimbling Palace at the Chamundi Hill becomes a hotel, where visitors can come and stay. How does this chime with this Pramoda Devi’s assertion that the Chamundi Hill should be preserved from developments?
By all means, hand over this Lalithamahal Palace, which was empty under Jayaychamaraja Wadiyar, ecept hosting a few events , and was a white elephant. Hence, its resurrection then as a luxury hotel. She also wants the Lansdowne and Devarajas Market buildings too, to be renovated under the much scandolous name of the SD Wadiyar, who was mostly ddrunk , when he was not chasing women. There are others too- Maharani’s College building, Elgin fountain and the list grows. Hand over all of them to this stupid Pramoda Devi- who let the Temple pond on the Chamundi Hill unattended for decades letting it to grow weed and attract filth! When an attempt was made to clean it, she put up a fence.
I was born in this city, gre up watching Jayachamaraja Wadiyar celebrarion of Dasara, and Durbar, and then witnessed this city grow massively with the flooding of non-Mysoreans as well as its destruction by greedy cretins like iNFOSYS Murtys who bought fertile land , to construct an institute to train IT Techies to do the coolie work of program coding for the software that Western companies outsourced to this INFOSYS to run as sweat shop!
Mysore is destroyed , and has moved on, and there are only a very minority like this George Rego and @Kini who are non-Mysorean settlers, who have no other work, but to prattle about the matter such as this.