Room with an airport attached

Arati Menon Carroll checks out the new face of Mumbai's Airport Centaur, which has been relaunched as Sahara Star.

A giant billboard accosts visitors to the newly-launched Sahara Star hotel adjoining Mumbai's Sahara airport. "The future is taking shape," it reads, "kindly bear with the present."

A slightly tentative greeting to the public opening of what is being pegged as an unmatched "blue chip" five-star hotel. Not an unreasonable disclaimer though, considering that the facade of the hotel still resembles a construction shed (in phase two of redevelopment though, it will be encased in new-wave glass and steel).

To be fair, that awkward orbicular structure was inherited. The property "" previously the Airport Centaur owned by Hotel Corporation of India "" has exchanged hands twice over under a cloud of disinvestment debate. In 2002, the property was sold to the Sahara group and renamed Sahara Hospitality. Since then, there has been piqued public interest amid Sahara's well-shrouded purpose.

Nevertheless, five years later, Sahara Star is officially open for business. And its management is pulling out all the stops to give the city something to talk about. They've pulled off a 55,000 sq ft tropical lagoon in the central courtyard of the hotel's circular structure.

Filled with clusters of red palms, banana plants, haleconia, ferns and snaking water bodies, the grandeur is topped only by a 90-foot clear-to-sky dome, making it very difficult to even recollect the space of old.

And this lush foliage offers not just aesthetic value. It has also been designed to be the hotel's key differentiator. With nine F&B outlets and some private gazebos encircling it, Vivek Kumar, CEO, Sahara Star, says that it will be come a hub of activity where, in the evenings, various artistes (acrobats, jazz musicians et al) will perform on a hydraulic stage and show pavilions.

"This hotel will be the first in India to fuse hospitality and entertainment in equal proportions," says Kumar. All inside-facing rooms come with large balconies so residents can get an eyeful of the entertainment without moving an inch. "Much like an opera," says Kumar.

The aesthetic itself is not entirely unique, caught somewhere between W Hotels and a Phuket beach resort "" Kumar himself is a Thailand dried-flowers enthusiast, it seems "" and it's interesting to note that there is little to no reference to the local community.

The refreshing feature is that they have broken away from the cookie-cutter norms of guest-room consistency, each class of room (ranging from Rs 10,000-4,00,000) is designed by a different architect. And although some of the room furniture looks like it has come off an assembly line (especially the rattan), the bathrooms are modern and thoughtfully functional.

There's no escaping the fact that the hotel is gimmicky. There's a Rs 1 lakh a-pop private dining room enclosed within what they claim is India's largest aquarium. You can even ask for the diver to prod the 100-odd species of fish into a feeding frenzy for amusement over amuses-bouche. Massive outdoor LED displays are placed, concert style in the courtyard.

The rooms are wired with hi-tech panels that allow you to infuse the air-conditioning with aroma therapy. Guests will be transported through the hotel's labyrinthine corridors in miniature golf carts specially designed for the purpose. "The hotel industry in India has for too long been a 'me too' business. Nobody is going to choose my hotel if we serve the same old Hakka noodles," says Kumar evangelically.

The Sahara branding is stamped across the venture. The cross-my-heart Sahara Pranam is the only greeting you will encounter. Sahara Samay flickers on television screens around the property. The group will also be hoping Sahara Star's success will dovetail into their 10,000 acre hill-city Amby Valley's fortunes.

For now, a walk through the hotel site will still have you dodge construction activity. The reason is that phase two (they call it Magnum Opus) will unveil an 18,000 sq ft spa, a superclub, ballrooms, more F&B outlets and 48 service apartments. "What we inherited was a shell of a hotel from the 1970s. Only we know the structural surgery that was required to bring it to life," says Kumar.

For now they're still borrowing from Centaur's history to assist easy identification. Hopefully, they can shrug off the Centaur legacy of ennui.