On the edge of Ranthambore National Park, where the Aravallis flatten into tiger country, Poonam Singh is continuing a twenty-five-year vision — one of the most extraordinary acts of conservation and sustainable living in India — and inviting just five groups of guests at a time to be part of it.
In 1998, Aditya Dicky Singh — then a civil servant in Delhi’s Ministry of Communications — did something most people in his position would not have considered. He left his job, followed his wife Poonam to the forests of Ranthambore, and began the long process of building a life alongside the tigers.
Both had been drawn to Ranthambore from different angles. Aditya had discovered the park years earlier and found himself returning whenever life permitted — unable to shake the feeling that the forest was where he was supposed to be. Poonam, an erstwhile sculptor and fashion artist, came later, fell in love with the landscape with equal intensity, and never left.
Together they started a small camp on leased government property in Khilchipur, just outside the national park boundaries. It quickly became known worldwide — among wildlife specialists, film crews, naturalists, and the many guests who shared their vision — as a home-from-home in the wild. Aditya began working as a wildlife photographer, eventually becoming one of the most celebrated in India, described by Valmik Thapar as one of the finest in the field. He was involved in anti-poaching initiatives including Operation Co-Operation — a joint effort with the Forest Department that led to the identification and capture of tiger poachers. He wrote Noor: Queen of Ranthambore, a celebrated book about a famous Ranthambore tigress. He worked with BBC on wildlife documentaries. He lived, entirely, inside the story of this forest.
In 2023, Aditya Singh died of a heart attack in his sleep, aged 57. He left behind Poonam, their daughter Nyra, 35 acres of rewilded land, and the extraordinary home they had built together. Poonam continues. The legacy is intact. The tigers are still here.
The Land
In 1999, Aditya and Poonam began purchasing small plots of land from farmers on the edges of the national park. Deforestation had pushed tigers outside the park boundaries, causing conflict with livestock and driving villagers away. The land was barren, overexploited, its soil exhausted by illegal quarrying and wood cutting. The Singhs’ plan was simple and radical in equal measure: buy the land, leave it alone, and see what happened.
What happened was a forest. Over twenty-five years, the 35 acres of land — now called Bhadlav — rewilded themselves back into a dense, indigenous jungle. Drone footage today shows a lush canopy teeming with wildlife. Tigers, which had been the reason for buying the land in the first place, were first seen walking onto it in 2000 when Aditya was filming a BBC documentary. They come regularly now. The water table on the property has risen as a result of the replanting. Not a single rupee of artificial landscaping produced this. Nature, given space and time, did it herself.
The Homestay
The Ranthambore Bagh is set within the family’s own home — described by Condé Nast Traveller as a living, breathing part of the ecosystem, built by conservation-led architects Matharoo Associates in a contemporary idiom that uses natural and local stone whose colours mirror the Aravalli Hills on the horizon. It is off-grid, powered entirely by solar panels, watered by bore water, and produces much of its own food in gardens planted exclusively with indigenous species.
There are just five guest cottages. This is not a number chosen for exclusivity as a marketing strategy. It is a number chosen because this is someone’s home and the home can hold five groups of guests with the care and attention that genuine hospitality demands. Each cottage has the understated elegance of architecture that knows its place — teak, rattan, natural stone, large windows that look out onto the gardens and the Aravalli ridgeline beyond.
The interiors carry the particular character of Poonam’s creative eye: bits of surplus fabric repurposed into stylish necklaces, woven bins transformed into lampshades, cow bells reimagined as light pulls. Nothing is wasted. Everything has a future use. The aesthetic is inventive, warm, and deeply personal — the kind of decorating that only comes from someone who loves making things and has been in the same house for twenty-five years.
All the coolness in summer comes from the shade of the living architecture and the through-breezes that the building’s orientation captures. In winter, the sun pours into the spaces with the reliability of a house that knows which way it faces. The air conditioning, when used, runs on rooftop solar. The electricity bill is negligible because the sun in Rajasthan is not.
Eating Here
The gardens at the Bagh are planted with fruits and vegetables indigenous to the region, picked the same morning they are served. The chefs work with what is growing — seasonal, local, and entirely honest about what part of the world you are in. The food reflects Rajasthan: robust flavours, fresh ingredients, the kind of cooking that tastes of the soil it came from.
A welcome of fresh lemon water revives after the drive. Breakfasts cover continental, vegetarian, and Asian options. Lunches and dinners are shaped by the garden’s output. Nothing is flown in or out of season. This is what sustainable luxury means in practice: not a sacrifice of pleasure, but a deepening of it.
Walking in Tiger Country
The defining experience of The Ranthambore Bagh — the thing that no other property in the area can offer in quite the same way — is the walk through the Bhadlav rewilding project with the family’s expertise as your guide. This is a 35-acre piece of active, functional tiger habitat. You walk on foot. You read the land the way Aditya taught people to read it — pugmarks, alarm calls, the language of a forest that is actively being used by its apex predators.
The phrase “walk in the wilderness in tiger country” is not a marketing promise. Tigers come to this land. They have been photographed here. Leopards have left their signs. Jungle cats, hyenas, jackals, desert foxes, crocodiles, and an extraordinary diversity of birds occupy this landscape daily. The walk, guided by people who have spent decades learning this specific piece of ground, is among the most intimate wildlife encounters available anywhere in India.
Jeep safaris into Ranthambore National Park — arranged through the Bagh’s twenty-five years of expertise — cover the core zones where tigers frequent the ancient lakes, the grasslands, and the shadow of the great fort. The family’s knowledge of the park, accumulated over a quarter of a century, means guests get better guides, better zones, and better chances.
Why It Stays With You
The Ranthambore Bagh is the product of a love story between two people and a piece of land. Aditya Singh gave the best years of his life to this forest, this soil, these tigers. Poonam continues that work — buying land, letting it re-wild, running the homestay with the philosophy that “keeping it real” is the only approach worth taking, and raising their daughter in the shadow of the Aravallis alongside the animals her parents devoted their lives to protecting.
To stay here is not to visit a resort. It is to be received into a home that was built with extraordinary conviction, on land that was saved with extraordinary effort, by a family whose relationship with the forest of Ranthambore is one of the most remarkable conservation stories in India.
The tigers know this land. Now you can too.
Plan Your Visit
Address: The Ranthambore Bagh, Ranthambore Road, Khilchipur, Sawai Madhopur — 322001, Rajasthan Phone: +91 82391 66777 Website: ranthambhore.com Instagram: @theranthambhorebagh Booking: Direct via website · Also available via Bagh Safaris (their own safari and travel service)
Owners: Poonam Singh (continuing the legacy of Aditya Dicky Singh, 1966–2023) Architecture: Matharoo Associates (conservation-led architects) Off-grid credentials: Solar-powered · Bore water · Zero food waste · Fully indigenous garden planting
Accommodation: 5 guest cottages — all with natural stone interiors, garden and Aravalli views, handcrafted decor, AC (solar-powered) Meals: All meals included · Garden-fresh, locally sourced, indigenous-species produce · Continental and vegetarian breakfast · Seasonal daily menus Experiences: Walking the Bhadlav rewilding project (tiger habitat) · Guided jeep safaris into Ranthambore National Park · Garden walks with companion planting education · Photo safaris (Aditya’s legacy continues) Conservation project: Bhadlav — 35 acres of rewilded tiger habitat adjacent to the national park
Getting There — Sawai Madhopur Railway Station is the nearest railhead — approximately 3 km from Khilchipur, around 10 minutes by road. Direct trains from Delhi (Hazrat Nizamuddin) take approximately 4–5 hours. — Jaipur International Airport is approximately 140 km — around 3 hours by road. Airport transfers can be arranged. — From Delhi by road: approximately 375 km — around 5–6 hours via Agra or Dausa. — From Jaipur by road: approximately 140 km — around 2.5 hours. — The property is on Ranthambore Road, Khilchipur — a short drive from the railway station.
Nearby — Ranthambore National Park gates: 4 km · Sawai Madhopur: 3 km · Ranthambore Fort: inside the park · Bhadlav rewilding land: adjacent to property · Chambal River safaris: 40 km · Jaipur: 140 km
Best Time to Visit: October to June for safaris (park open) · February to May for peak tiger activity as vegetation thins and animals use water sources · November to February for cool Rajasthan mornings and evenings · Park closed July to September (monsoon) but the Bagh remains open and the rewilded land is spectacular in the rains.
