THE ROYAL TOUCH
REBEL PRINCESS WITH A CAUSE
Akshita M. Bhanj Deo Of Mayurbhanj
Armed with a degree in Politics and Human Rights from Bard College, working as a consultant with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) non-profit and using her ancestors’ jewellike palace in Mayurbhanj, Odisha, as a springboard of hospitality and creativity impacting lives of marginalised local communities, 27-year-old Princess Akshita M. Bhanj Deo of Mayurbhanj is a role model for her generation of erstwhile royals.
She is also doubling up as a Director of Belgadia Palace, her family home in Baripada, Mayurbhanj district. The “Wes Anderson-esque” Palace (picture the candy-coloured palette of his film, The Grand Budapest Hotel), which she describes as perfectly symmetrical and sitting on 20 acres, is done up in sorbet pastel colours, with nostalgic touches and quaint memorabilia. But it’s the history of
