On any given day, a drive from Delhi to Udaipur treats the traveller to a spectacular view of the mountains and valleys.

It would be a shame not to fall in love with this scene. And on one such road trip in 1994, Major Durga Das and his wife, Jyoti Jasol, did.

“We had always wanted to buy a home in Udaipur,” shares Jyoti (58), who belongs to the royal ancestral line of the Rathores of Marwar-Jodhpur.

Major (66), meanwhile, is a descendant of the royal ancestral lines of The House of Bassi-Udaipur. One look at the scenery, the couple recalls, was all it took to convince them to buy this 2.5 acre land.

After 13 years in the Army, Major left the service and the couple decided to start developing this land.

When they first began working out of this land, they started floriculture with the idea of supplying flowers to the Taj Palace, Udaipur. However, what they estimated to be a booming business did not work out. They had hit a dead end.

So the couple moved to Delhi in 1997, where their baby girl was born, and Jyoti spent the next two years being a doting mother.

But she still harboured a dream of running a homestay in Udaipur and so in 1999, she returned to the piece of land.

From then until 2004, she spent time developing the land. “Those years were beautiful,” she says, adding that she inked relationships with the craftsmen of the city.

Jyoti recalls, “When we visited the land for the first time all we saw was cactus. The land did not support the growth of anything else.”

The couple started bringing in soil from the Pichola Lake in Udaipur. This was before the Rajasthan Lake Protection and Conservation Authority passed a proposal that put three lakes in Udaipur under a prohibited zone in 2016.

What started with three rooms is now a 10-bedroom heritage homestay made of Rajasthani stone, bang in the middle of lush fields and farms.

The food flavour is enhanced by the traditional chulha cooking method that the family has been following for 25 years now.

What’s more is that you could learn to cook this feast yourself at the Heritage Cooking Class hosted by Jyoti.

The couple is extremely sensitive to the culture around and every guest is taken to the neighbouring villages where they can share goodies and treats with the village children.