When S. S. H. Rehman, a young Army cadet in Dehradun, went training in Rishikesh, he stood over the Lakshmanjhula Bridge admiring the clear, transparent water. Nearly 40 years later, Rehman, now the Managing Director of ITC hotels, says he is proud to be associated with India’s latest and probably Asia’s best super five star hotel where the aqueducts, flowing water, 3000 water lilies and vast stretches of pure greenery makes it worth every penny of the Rs 240 crore it took to build and every tired business executive’s dream come true.

On paper, the ITC Sonar Bangla Sheraton Hotel and Towers sounds impressive, but certainly not unique. An area of 16 acres, 239 rooms, two tennis courts, a chip-and-putt golfing green, a near-Olympic size swimming pool, an 13,500 sq. feet health spa, 7 restaurants, 4 Darjeeling tea pavilions, 3 lounges, 3 residential blocks, an art gallery. Kolkata has never seen anything of its kind.

As the men and women who have conceptualised, planned and worked for the past two years to build what ITC chairman Y.C. Deveshwar on Saturday confidently said was "Asia’s best restobiz", would point out, Sonar Bangla is not just a hotel but a dream come true: a ‘mini city’ on the banks of the Ganges, where paintings and posto bata, state-of-the-art technology and a 2150 square ft Virginia Suite, blend and live in perfect harmony.

"Our basic concern was to ensure we were the greenest hotel, and to make sure guests get not just all business facilities but also sound sleep," says chief executive of housekeeping, S. Aluwaliah.

The hotel has its unique selling points- eight large aqueducts that the television goes on the mute automatically each time the telephone rings in a room. Or the fact that all the marble used to build the hotel came straight from a quarry in Italy, which ITC bought out!

Then there are the dedicated souls who made sure Sonar Bangla lived up to its name. Art consultant Ina Puri put up a wonderful exhibition of paintings of Kolkata, by artists young and old, living and legends. Chitra Ghosh dug out recipes from memory to make sure Bengali food served here is straight out of Grandma’s cookbook.

But the man who takes credit for making Sonar Bangla an environmentalist’s delight is Suhash Joshi, who traveled the world to get 7500 plants, including 3000 water lilies, half of which bloom at night and half during the day, 1400 trees, 1500 aqua plants, three kinds of mosquito repellent plants and even a 900 metre joggers track for the fitness freaks.

"I have done the greenery for 12 hotels across India before this, but this is my biggest project," Joshi says. There’s one variety of water lily that Joshi has brought called Victoria Amazonia, which has a diameter of over a metre and can take the weight of a 35 kg boy.

"This hotel will make the country sit up and take notice. It’s the best new year gift, the biggest tribute ITC could ever pay Kolkata," said Rehman.