I know it’s a dream when I see engineered butterflies and bees pollinating the planet in algorithmic routes. The atmosphere is so clear you can see the moons circling the planet. Thirteen of them. I count them thrice, just to be sure. A fall into a crater breaks my delusion. I wake up inside a capsule. Just the right size to fit my supine self snugly, the pod is full of contraptions illuminated an ethereal blue. Am I still dreaming, a dream within another? It takes a while to find my bearings. Time and space slowly fold into a continuum and the laws of physics return to their familiar state.
It’s 6am.
I never left Earth. The moment I had entered my 7 ft by 4ft pod at Urbanpod Hotel, Mumbai, the previous day, it had reminded me of Chris Pratt’s reel journey through space. In Passengers, 5,000 people sign up to spend 120 years of their lives on board a spacecraft, Avalon, which is headed to a colonised world light years away from Earth. Hibernation pods don’t let them age a day during this period. Very convenient, Hollywood.
Much like the movie, a pod at Urbanpod serves the primary purpose of sleeping in for modern travellers. A substitute for a traditional room, the pod might lack space but has all the essential devices, and then some, for survival. Primarily made out of ABS polymer and glass panels, it has a rim-lit circular mirror that would be more at home in a space shuttle or a submarine. The 6 ft by 3ft bed is soft and snug, with a duvet and two pillows. A plasma TV is embedded in the glass panel facing the pillows; a headphone ensures entertainment in absolute silence. With 12 to 18 pods stacked in two tiers in each room, the absence of speakers is a blessing.
A charging point, two USB ports, a locker,a smoke detector and fire extinguisher, and a digital clock-calendar have all been elegantly accommodated. The brightness levels of the ceiling light, mirror light, and two reading lights can be adjusted with touch pads. One thing’s for sure—this is the fanciest bed I’ll ever sleep in (unless I score that one-way ticket to Mars).
To the millennial traveller, Urbanpod offers a unique staying experience. To the frugal backpacker or airline passenger in transit, it provides a bed for the night at a very affordable cost. Co-founder Hiren Gandhi says it aims to bridge the gap between four-star hotels and lower rated ones. “Here, you get all the basic services—a bed, wi-fi, breakfast, hygiene and good service—without having to pay for anything extra or compromising on quality.”
But living in a pod requires some minimalism. There’s no space to keep anything on the bedside except perhaps a cell phone and a bottle of water. There’s a locker in the room—one for each pod— which is just about big enough to fit my backpack. Any other luggage goes into a cloak room near the reception. Shoes, too, need to be tucked into a shoe locker before entering the lobby area. While that ensures the shared rooms do not stink, it makes trips to the shared bathrooms (24 of them between 140 pods) an uncomfortable experience.
Foreign tourists are used to pod hotels and know the drill, I’m told. In fact, the founders got the idea for Urbanpod after staying in a pod hotel in Singapore. But for Indians—used to an abundance of living space and attached bathrooms—this lifestyle will take some reorientation.
Smart cards are the only way to access everything—the pod’s entry through a steel-plate door, its power supply, the lockers and even the lobby. Still in its infancy—it launched on March 1—Urbanpod hasn’t perfected its access cards though. It takes three cards to finally unlock my pod. When I return at night, a mechanical issue locks me out for a while. The experience has me conjuring up dramatic entrapment and escape scenarios. In the absence of an emergency call bell, I note down the reception number. Just in case.
The cafeteria, open from 6am to 10pm, serves a daily rotating à la carte menu of seven veg and non-veg dishes each, and a breakfast buffet. It compensates for the lack of sunlight in the pods with huge French windows that overlook the busy streets of Andheri. Potted plants, leaf-green walls and wall-art featuring flora lend it a soothing ambience. Like the pods which are clustered in rooms, the café seating is designed to catalyse interaction between travellers.
There isn’t much to do inside the hotel so I spend the day visiting my favourite Mumbai haunts, returning only at night for a dose of futuristic dreams. The pods here might not help you age slower or make intergalactic travel possible, but if you need a co-living space or feel like hibernating—exploring the glamorous streets of B-town during the day and vanishing in a self-sustaining cocoon at night—this is the place to try. (Unless you’re claustrophobic, of course.)
The Information
Location: First Floor, Opus Park, MIDC Central Road, Andheri East, Mumbai. It’s about 4.4km from the international airport and 6km from the domestic airport.
Accommodation: 140 pods, including 106 general classic pods, 18 pods in a Ladies-only room (with three exclusive washrooms), 6 private pods (a window-facing classic pod with private entry), and 10 suite pods (small rooms with a queen-size bed for double occupancy).
Tariff: A classic pod costs ₹1,885 per night, private pod ₹2,400, and suite pod ₹3,825 (includes breakfast and wi-fi, taxes extra).
Contact: +91-7400486116, theurbanpod.com