New Delhi, Feb. 24 -- It's a Sunday evening, and I am at a coffee shop in Aram Nagar, a locality tucked away within Versova in Mumbai's western suburb of Andheri. It's teeming with people, some busy on their laptops. A television actor next to me goes on about his next gig. Some theatre folks are reading out a script.

Aram Nagar, once a British army barrack and then a shelter for Partition refugees, is now an entertainment hub with production houses and casting agencies confined in its dusty labyrinthine lanes. Today, what has amplified the neighbourhood's popularity is its location right off the beach brimming with sea-facing properties, and more recently, a mega coastal road that will connect it with Bandra. It has also attracted hip r...