There are properties that accommodate you, and then there are properties that hold you. Ananta Spa & Resort, Ajabgarh hosted with exceptional warmth by owner Ashutosh Goyal, belongs firmly to the second category.
Ananta Spa & Resort, Ajabgarh against the backdrop of the Aravalli foothills of Rajasthan
Set across 30 acres in the Aravalli foothills of Rajasthan, roughly three hours from Delhi, Ananta Ajabgarh occupies a geography that does most of the work before you have even unpacked. The ruins of Ajabgarh Fort rise in the near distance. The air is different here - slower, older, unconcerned with urgency. The property understands this completely, and makes no attempt to compete with its surroundings. It simply settles into them.
The Accommodation
The Earth Villa
The resort offers 135 villas across five categories - Lagoon, Bamboo, Fire (with balcony or sit-out), and the rare, expansive Earth Villa at 1,650 sq. ft. - each conceptually rooted in one of the five natural elements. The philosophy informs the materiality, the palette, the quality of light in each room.
The Bamboo Villa
The Bamboo Villa is in a category of its own. A two-floor duplex of considerable generosity, it comes complete with a children’s room, a beautiful upper level, and the kind of space that makes you recalibrate what a weekend away can actually feel like. I woke to birdsong…a real birdsong, unhurried and layered and the particular quiet of the Aravalli Hills settling into morning. It is the kind of silence that cities spend years trying to manufacture and never quite manage. Here it simply exists, as it always has.
The Table
The Main Restaurant, Oasis
Oasis, the main restaurant, seats 200 and runs a global menu with a confident, well-executed spread. The Sariska Lounge, more intimate at 50 covers, is where the property reveals its better instincts: good drinks, multi-cuisine bites, and a room that earns its keep after sundown. For the genuinely curious, the Cook with the Masters experience - a personal session with the resort’s chef navigating Indian and continental technique is subtly one of the most memorable things on offer.
The Traditional Rajasthani Thali
And then there are the small details that reveal a host who is paying attention. On departure, Ashutosh Goyal sent us off with fresh raspberry grown on the low trees within the resort grounds, packed and ready for the drive home. It was such a considered, quietly generous gesture that it stayed with all of us long after the journey ended. These are the moments that separate a hotel from a home.
The Spa
The Tattva Spa
The Tattva Spa operates on the logic of the five elements - Prithvi, Vayu, Agni, Jal, Aakash and the treatments reflect that framework with genuine integrity. Spa Sojourns, massage selections, beauty elixirs, express therapies, and a considered face mask menu are all available from 10am to 8pm. The space is calm in the way that only comes from spas designed with thought process. This is a spa that takes its brief seriously.
The Sacred
The Temple Preserved on Grounds
What Ananta Ajabgarh understands and what most properties in this part of Rajasthan do not is that this land carries something older than hospitality. On the grounds sits a Shiv temple of considerable age, partially returned to the earth in the way that only centuries can manage. For anyone who holds Shiv and what he represents close - the stillness, the dissolution, the power that lives in absolute silence standing inside that space is something else entirely. It is an encounter. The fact that Ananta has chosen to preserve it speaks to a certain wisdom about what a place like this actually is.
The Culture
Ashutosh Goyal’s instinct for hospitality extends well beyond the comfortable and the orchestrated. During our stay, he invited local artists to perform, giving us an unscripted, generous window into the living culture of this region. It was the kind of moment that no itinerary can manufacture, and no five-star property in a city can replicate. This is Rajasthan as it actually is: vital, proud, and deeply beautiful when given the space to simply be itself.
The Ecosystem
This is where Ananta Ajabgarh becomes something more significant than a luxury resort and where Ashutosh Goyal’s vision deserves to be spoken about plainly.
Ananta built an ecosystem in the heartland. The entire community surrounding the property has been drawn into its orbit in the best possible way - employed, trained, educated, and supported. There is active reverse migration happening here: people who left for cities have returned, because Ananta created the conditions for a dignified, skilled livelihood at home. Families are better fed. Children are better educated. An entire village has been elevated because one family decided that a resort and its surroundings should rise together.
It is rare to encounter a hospitality property that functions as a genuine act of community building. Ananta Ajabgarh is that, and it wears it with no fanfare whatsoever, which makes it all the more remarkable.
The Landscape and Beyond
Bhangarh Fort is among the most architecturally preserved and mythologically resonant sites in Rajasthan and sits 15 kilometres away, and the resort offers a guided tour by hotel car with tickets and provisions included. Sariska National Park is also within reach. Ananta Ajabgarh has built itself around five distinct pillars - Wildlife, Worship, Wellness, and Weddings among them and the land delivers on every one.
The Host
Ashutosh Goyal’s hospitality is the kind that makes you feel that your presence genuinely matters. Every element of the stay was considered: the villa, the artists, the temple, the raspberries at the gate. This is a man who has thought carefully about what it means to welcome someone into a place his family has built with great intention, and it shows in everything, including what he chooses not to say.
Ashutosh Goyal
Ashutosh Goyal’s hospitality is the kind that makes you feel that your presence genuinely matters. Every element of the stay was considered: the villa, the artists, the temple, the raspberries at the gate. This is a man who has thought carefully about what it means to welcome someone into a place his family has built with great intention, and it shows in everything, including what he chooses not to say.
Ananta Spa & Resort, Ajabgarh is the answer to a question the Delhi and Jaipur traveller has been asking for longer than they realise: where do you go when you want Rajasthan’s soul without its spectacle, a weekend that genuinely restores you, and the rare comfort of knowing that your being there actually does some good? The answer is 30 acres in the Aravallis, a fort on the horizon, birds at dawn, and a host who means every word of his welcome.
