Here are three things you should know about my phone: the battery dies in 45 minutes, the insufficient storage box pops up more often than a good morning text and every two days I have to delete an app I actually use. The one app that usually survives is Instagram. I’m a social media manager and parting ways with the platform that fuels both my livelihood and my attention span is not exactly second nature. Unless, apparently, a princess or two invites you to stay at her ancestral home. Which is exactly what happened to me.
I landed in Kolkata and headed onwards to Baripada in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, lined with majestic Sal trees. My arrival at the Belgadia Palace was smooth and faintly regal, much like the glass of champagne waiting for me. Princesses Mrinalika and Akshita Bhanj Deo sat in front of me in a spacious room lined with portraits of their ancestors and taxidermy bison heads. They spoke about the palace as a home first, not just a property: restoring rooms, hosting artists and keeping traditions alive. It struck me then how different that was from my world, where everything is calibrated for visibility. A perfect thecha grilled cheese? Story it. A throwback photograph of a school friend with wildly different hair? Story it, then add context over the next two slides.
By this point, it had been 12 hours since I had deleted Instagram; Rochelle Pinto, our Head of Editorial Content, had floated the idea of a social media detox in one of our digital meetings, and I nodded with real enthusiasm because, much as I hate to admit it, even I find the internet exhausting sometimes. Even for me. Was I experiencing withdrawals? Not yet. I was escorted to my Gulab suite by a kind member of staff and noticed many women working at the palace were dressed in beautiful cotton saris. The itinerary handed to me mapped out three nights of Chhau performances: Mayurbhanj Chhau (Odisha), Seraikella Chhau (Jharkhand) and Purulia Chhau (West Bengal). I was in for a very good weekend.
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