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Cost: $5,500 per person.

Beneficiary: Floating Desert School

Immersion and Introspection in Shahpura Bagh.

For ten days visitors to this still and secret garden retreat will live in a place that is quiet with a rare expectancy, offering guests an opportunity to step out of their usual lives, for an exhilarating, private experience.

Shahpura Bagh provides delightfully light vegetarian food, most comfortable and elegant rooms and places to read. There are other places to paint or sketch, write poetry, letters and stories. Peacocks dance on the grounds and the visitor can dance as well or do yoga and meditate. Others can play a musical instrument or sing.

A gentle family of a brother and sister with a photographer nephew and his reserved wife live in this garden as its owners. A few gardeners and attendants assist them and the guest visitors. The customs of old continue into the present. They practise 'jeev daya' compassion to animals and will not eat before feeding the peacocks a handful of grain each morning. Incense and the light of an oil lamp visit each room at sunset to honour the gods, respect the ancestors and recognise the spirit world that live in harmony in this garden. All have place in this historic world, the invisible, the animal and the human.

On occasion, visitors can float upon the lake in little boats or drive to nearby medieval forts. They can visit the villages that are scattered about and the tiny crowded market of Shahpura for the wares that serve the needs of local farmers and shopkeepers.

Spontaneous excursions that trace the history of the region through neighbouring forts and legends, rambles that transform into safaris in the flash of a beckoning wing-- the surrounding wetlands are a birdwatcher's paradise, tempting even to the uninitiated!

Local painters and musicians may on happy days and holy days come to the garden and show their wares or play for the family. Visitors are certainly welcome to attend and where appropriate participate.

This retreat is designed to serve each guest's needs with utmost care. To preserve the quality of the retreat, reservations are limited to 6-8 guests. Each day will be designed to meet the evolving needs and desires of each guest as they so choose, introducing them to a world of peaceful, self-determined spontaneity.