The first government-owned five-star hotel in India turns 50 later this year. New Delhi's Ashok Hotel with 550 rooms and 111 suites is not devoid of stories, anecdotes and nostalgic memories.
And though there are very few people left today who have seen the hotel from its inception in 1956, the stories surrounding Ashok are very interesting.
Rabindra Seth, a journalist with All India Radio at the time, recalls that in his address at the 1955 Unesco Conference in Paris, Pandit Nehru invited Unesco to India for its next conference, an invitation promptly accepted by the organisation.
When his advisors reminded Nehru about the lack of facilities in New Delhi, he decided to build a hotel and a convention centre. It was then that Ashok's construction began, while Vigyan Bhawan became Asia's first convention centre.
The construction of both these huge structures, though a mammoth task involving attention paid to tiniest of details, was accomplished in just 15 months.
As we take a trip down memory lane, Chandni Luthra, senior VP, India Tourism Development Corporation, informs us, "Pandit Nehru used to personally supervise the construction of the hotel. One could spot him at the construction site a number of times."
Besides Pt Nehru, many maharajas from different parts of India have also left their indelible mark in the hotel. Dr Karan Singh, for instance presented the famous Nataraj statue that we see in the lobby of the hotel even today. The hotel initially had only three floors.
The huge edifice that we see today is after two big additions, one in the 1960s when the annexe and the pillar-less convention hall were constructed and the other in the 1980s when the tower block came up. One of the major highlights of the hotel was its thematic rooms including the Naga suite, the Neelam suite, the Kashmir suite, Mughal suite and
the Assam suite.
Interestingly, Ashok was the only hotel then to have a cultural advisor who helped organise entertainment events in the hotel under the concept of Ashok Theatre.
In fact, actors like Hema Malini and Meenakshi Sheshadri and musicians like Pt Uday Shankar to name just a few, performed at Ashok in the beginning of their careers.
Though the glamour associated with the hotel back in the '60s and '70s may have faded significantly, there are some fierce loyalists who still remember the charming ambience of the hotel.
"Back in the '70s," says Anil Bhandari, MD of Travel House, "the hotel was a hub of activity and a favourite of those who wanted to sample international cuisine." Bhandari would know.
He stepped into the hotel as a junior in the executive operations department in 1970 and went on to become the chairman of ITDC in 1992. While he was in Ashok, Bhandari also started the hotel's first Japanese restaurant in partnership with Japan Airlines.
On its ground floor stood a popular French restaurant, Rougenoire that had a nightclub-like ambience and served the best French cuisine in town thanks to its French chef Roger Moncourt. Back in the '70s, Supper Club lured people to step into Ashok even as popular singer Usha Uthup crooned endlessly.
The current GM of Ashok Hotel, Vinod Sharma, recalls when many of his colleagues went to Germany for training in hotel management.
You see, Steigenberger Hotel Group were consultants for upgrading the hotel and given the task to train the staff especially as the hotel was a fixture for all the high-profile guests who stepped into the hotel regularly.
Speaking of VIPs who stayed at the hotel, Queen Elizabeth II, Marshall Tito, Margaret Thatcher, Prince Aga Khan are just a few names that come to mind instantly. For a very long time, Ashok remained a favourite place for the innumerable heads of states who came to India. Sometime in the late '70s nearly 40 heads of states stayed in the hotel at the same time.
Luthra says, "When Cuban president Fidel Castro stayed at the hotel, the security was so high that there were three look-alikes of Castro in the hotel. It was difficult to tell when the original Castro passed by."
Then there was a Saudi Arabian ambassador who stayed in the hotel's presidential suite for three years and held his daughter's marriage reception in the hotel.
Built on 25 acres of land, this hotel is still very much a part of the lexicon of Delhi. It might have lost its fan club to the other five-stars that dot the city but Ashok is still housed in one of Delhi's best locations.
Bhandari recalls that in 1995-96 as chairman of ITDC, he had conceived Ashok's expansion plan at Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) with a 3,000-seater convention centre along with 250 rooms and 50 additional suites. It never saw the light of day.
The hotel today boasts of catering to an increasing number of corporate travellers with eight specialty restaurants, a brand new disco to step the tempo and a pub too.
But for those regulars who have been coming back to the hotel since the'70s, Ashok is simply a charming memory that refuses to fade.
Add-Ons
- Charles Sobhraj managed a grand robbery at the hotel by drilling through the floor of a room to the jewellery store below.
- In 1982-83, musician Zubin Mehta and his group walked out of the hotel after they found a cockroach in their room.
- Vergheese Kurien always used room number 555 at the hotel.
