Neer Mahal : The Water Palace of Tripura

I never go here but wish to go, one day. This palace caught my eye, when I was flying over Tripura's(India) sky in Google Earth. after a little search work in internet , I find some good history. This place may be take place in blogger's world, though I can't wait to share my view to let people know about this place. 


Neermahal,where 'Neer' means water, the water palace, built in 1930 by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya as summer resort is located at a distance of about 53 km from Agartala. The second water palace in India(first one is in Rajshtan). The palace, which took nine years to be built, is a pleasing harmony of Hindu and Muslim architecture. Over 400 feet in length, the palace contains two distinct wings - eastern one is for housing security and menial staff and the western wing is reserved for roayaly and the extended royal family.


Image Courtesy : Kanad Sanyal from Flickr
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History of Conception

To come to the story of palaces in the centre of a lake, there was a king by the name of Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya. His fantasy too was similar to that of King Ludwig.King Ludwig II built a palace of beauty par excellence in the middle of lake Chemisee in the Bavarian country.The two kings are compared because both of them had enough places to stay in without requiring a palace in the centre of a lake and they both built it for the sake of doing so. While Ludwig is said to have planned his palace with an intention to make money by encouraging visitors to his castle, the king of Tripura did not have any such pretext. He was just indulging himself.


The Palace inside

It took nine years to build a structure that appeared to be a floating castle. With 24 rooms, the palace is 400m long. The palace can be divided into two main sections: the Andarmahal, which is to the western side and the eastern side, which was meant to house the staff of the king. In the main building were two sections one for the king and one for the queen with a huge dancing room is lined with five rooms: a bathroom, a leisure room, a bedroom and treasury room and a room for playing chess. In addition to this, the queen's friends and relatives had a set of six rooms for themselves while the king and his men had another set of rooms of which one is a large meeting hall, where he met the masses.There is a huge garden inside the palace, leads the western wing - the Andermahal of the palace. At night, flood lighting add colour to the beauty. In winter large number of migratory birds are seen in Rudrasagar Lake surrounding the palace.Besides the fishermen's activity in lake is also an eye catching subject. There are two option to get in - the Maharajah Stairs and the Maharani Stairs.


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Those who are not in hurry to go there,
may love to take a glimpse. The following tube may be an interesting one : 
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Web Source : Indiainfoweb, Wikipedia
For Google Earth view Click Here<< | Google Map

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