Leaving 5*

FEB 1st. Leaving 5* ....
( we lived in an house in AUNDH -pune for about a year [Feb06-Jan07]. We/every one called it 5*.
one fine day,we decided to shift to kothrud on FEb 1st 2007.
Some of the content might be off reference.... but that's how it is.)
written on 1st feb 2007

I am not exactly “shed those tears once in a while” type person.
Still today I feel disturbed somehow.
And I do require strong reasons for being disturbed.
Normally my state of mind is happy-happier-happiest.
And that’s how it should be for a software engineer earning good enough salary living with college friends in an excellent city.

But I am digressing. The reason why I am feeling sad today is really very different!

We are leaving our old house (I hate to term our house as merely ‘Room’)
We are leaving 5*.

The specialty of 5* starts right from the name itself!
Though we think it is self explanatory, many won’t, because it’s got a nice history.

Q: Why the name is 5*? (1M)
A: there lived 6 gentlemen happily in this house. When question arose of naming the same,
One gentleman (few have doubt whether we can call him so) came up with idea of ‘5*’.

Well, answer is not complete yet. But doesn’t this remind you of some of the classic answers we wrote over the years!
The logic behind 5* was-: 5 gentlemen + Mr. STAR (Tarkesh) = 5*

5* apartments was/is/will be one of the best possible abode a pest/gorilla/human/dinosaur can get.
It’s simply huge.
We never felt space crunch unless number of people staying went above 12.
The house always seemed to welcome everyone anytime.
Now I don’t know whether it’s simply our nature or the house allowed us to express this generosity towards everyone, probably a mixture of both.

I still remember the wee hours on fine working day when I heard a voice which was distinctly distinct and not from 5*.
But then calmed myself down and started guessing who this “Visitor of the day” could have been?
Being in 5* always gave me a sensation of being in a joint family.
Hustle bustle, noise, fights etc.
Now I must admit that few of us have been given vocal chords which are gutsier than badminton racket’s guts.
So we don’t need third person to call it crowd!

Its getting difficult to pen don now…
5* doesn’t have the ambience of a polished house
It isn’t really in best of the conditions either.
5* can’t boast of good furniture, hell it doesn’t have a single chair !!!
Forget about beds.

But it has something more to it.
It’s really a kind house.
Simple and beautiful.
Small yet big inside.

And then I suddenly realized 5* is not a house.
It’s a mind-set.
Our mission is to convert every single house, where we are going to stay, into a 5*.