OVERVIEW
Narain Niwas was a country residence to which Amar Singh could withdraw when he wanted a change from his busy administrative and court life, and from the cares of ‘the Kanota family’s Haveli (the Narain Niwas) within the walled city. Like other noblemen of old Jaipur State, he built his "garden house" in the vicinity of Rambagh, the pleasure garden and palace whose construction was begun in the 19th century by Maharaja Ram Singh (1835- 1880). Until World War II, Narain Niwas surrounded by jungle where Amar Singh could go for pig sticking (hunting wild boar), to shoot game birds, and to hunt black buck and the occasional panther.
Amar Singh’s reputation as a soldier, administrator and a sports man is exceeded by his reputation as a diarist. His diary, kept in English for 44 years, from 1898 to 1942, in 89 folio volumes, 800 pages per volume, provides and unparalleled ethnographic account of Rajput life in princely India in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. |
