Jewel In The Crown

- K.Sunil Thomas

The drive from Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport towards Hitec City, the new nerve centre of this Southern metropolis, is a breeze. The roads are world class, and the weather, sublime enough to make you forget Delhi before you can say ‘traffic jams’. Past the fortress-like Ikea building (the Swedish retailer’s first outpost in India) and a few freshly constructed tower blocks, you come across a shimmering ‘diamond’ towering into the sky. It’s the latest, much-awaited new luxury hotel from the ITC Welcomgroup, and like the famed hotel chain’s previous offerings, the superlatives have been pouring in fast and thick since its formal launch last month.

Hyderabad reminds most people of the Nizams and its famed biryani. But not too far behind is the world’s largest diamond, the Kohinoor, which is believed to have been mined from here, before it found its way across continents, centuries and centurions onto the crown. Aptly enough, ITC’s most ambitious venture in this bustling city takes its concept and design inspirations from the legendary stone. The hotel’s name is the Persian root word meaning ‘mountain of light’ from which the diamond was named.