Synopsis In India, where over five hundred ruling families acceded to the democratic union at the end of the British Raj, there is hardly a dearth of palaces, but the magnificence and scale of Jodhpur’s Umaid Bhawan, its 347 splendidly appointed rooms and elaborate gardens, its seemingly endless corridors and, for the 1940s, very modern comforts, make it one of the most enviable of royal residences anywhere in the world.