The Ambience Of Moksha

Fresco on wood

Fresco on wood

Vaasna room,Tamas floor

Vaasna room,Tamas floor

In a world of high fashion and luxury marble, it is refreshing to come across a boutique hotel that knows its worth and stands unabashedly apart from the rest. Le Sutra hotel has a continuous desire towards patronage of the arts, as evidenced from the moment Australian director Baz Luhrmann helped paint a wall mural outside, to the small details like having art magazines on the coffee table in the lobby of the hotel.

The three-storeyed hotel, tucked between Pali Hill’s Olive and Out of the Blue, picks up the three universal gunas (forms of energy which connote the innate character, complexion and constitution of mind and matter). The word also means rope or thread, hence the name Le Sutra.

Each of the hotel’s 14 rooms are based on either characters (Ravana, Ashoka, Buddha) or characteristics (sensuality, love, purification) inspired by Indian mythology, where every room is in itself the metaphorical characterisation of a story. Every room has an iconic chair, which depicts the room’s mood and theme – also drawing from the fact that the chair is a seat of power and influence.

In this spiritually-designed hotel, the Vaasna (sensuality) room on the Tamas floor is a confluence of duality and sensuality. The room has artistic elements like the fresco on wood, where the two people in the act are the Shiva-Shakti principle: one becomes the deity to the other and the worship of this union takes them closer to the cosmic energy or the fundamental reality; the Yoni lamp, the sensuous figurines and the Khajuraho miniatures. The latter were used to greatly emphasise the significance of sexual conjugation as a means of attaining moksh or salvation, using the sensual as a path to the spiritual.

If the warm hospitality including that of the reception staff, who take individual care of each guest doesn’t, the combination of experiences, emotions and fond memories will make Le Sutra a memorable stay.