The Bombay dream goes in for redevelopment

If you have lived in Andheri West and worked in the film industry chances are you couldnrsquot have missed Inlaks the soontobetorndown society that has been a rite of passage into Bombayrsquos film world There is a longrunning joke that all roads in Versova lead to Inlaks mdash sometimes for an unforgettable night of partying with friends sometimes to huddle around a laptop and write your first film and more often than not because it was one of the last housing societies in this supposedly progressive city that didnrsquot interrogate you before handing you a key Which religion do you belong to Are you married What do you do for a living And the most humiliating of all ldquoMovies mein ho Toh phir ghar kyun dengerdquoAakash DahiyaMy entry into Inlaks was after an unfortunate sabbatical I took from midday to pursue my Bollywood dreams I landed up in the office of screenwriters Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor in 2023 after a decade of avoiding the mystical magical land that has been the starting point of hopes for many NDAs forbid me from telling more of what we made and what eventually happened or didnrsquot happen to it but it sure did one thing It brought me back to life through a really dark phase of my own career So when I decided to write this piece I went back to meet them where I began at that very officeThe glorious 2010sIn 2011 when Kakker first came to Inlaks Versova was still a very different place ldquoThis used to be such a deep end of the city that literally a dust bowl was flying hererdquo he remembers ldquoThis wasnrsquot even a paved road it was a rough roadrdquoOver the years the society became known as a kind of unofficial filmschool extension a place where people who had come to Bombay to work in films could find a home often before they had found a career The society itself had a different purpose when it came up Kakker recalls that Inlaks was created as lowcost accommodation for members of the Sindhi community through the Amil PanchayatActors Sanya Malhotra and Rajkummar Rao both were frequent visitors at InlaksOver time however it acquired another identity one that would become almost inseparable from Mumbairsquos film industry Directors cinematographers art directors actors casting directors and acting trainers lived there or regularly hung around ldquoThey used to call it a mini FTIIrdquo he saysldquoRajkummar Rao bought an Audi and the joke was that it was a car worth more than a house So I would see Rajkummar chilling outside A lot of directors DPs art directors from FTII would hang out here When casting directors were not even a legitimate profession casting director and acting trainer Prashant Singh used to hang out here Actors Aakash Dahiya and Chandan Roy Sanyal used to hang out hererdquoWhat mattered though was not simply the number of film people living in one place It was the fact that everyone was at a different point in the same journey ldquoThere was a sense of community Outside Inlaks and inside Inlaks there are a lot of people like me who are in different degrees of success Some are just starting out some are about to start some have already started And the common factor was this spacerdquoAshish VermaThe feeling he remembers was simple mdash you could walk outside bump into somebody who has just made it and think ldquotomorrow it will be my turnrdquo That became part of Inlaksrsquos mythology Kakker remembers the building going into a small frenzy at the famous chai tapri outside over the belief that Aamir Khan had visited during the shoot of Dangal 2016 because Sanya Malhotra was apparently living there ldquoI donrsquot even know if itrsquos true or notrdquo he saysThere was a piece of folklore about Inlaks that Kakker remembers clearly ldquoIf you come to the industry and donrsquot live in Inlaks you havenrsquot come to the industryrdquoThe reason the joke stuck was because the society had a reputation for making room for people who might not have found it elsewhere ldquoBachelors used to get houses Four boys used to get houses Minorities used to get houses Industry people used to get housesrdquo That was crucial for people entering an industry built around irregular work Actors donrsquot necessarily have salariesWriters didnrsquot necessarily have salaries A person could have talent ambition and a promising audition and still not have the paperwork or income that made a conventional landlord comfortable Inlaks had room for that personThe tea stall outsideFor casting director Aakash Dahiya who worked with Mukesh Chhabra in their early years the film industry didnrsquot just exist inside Inlaks It existed at the tea stall outsideDahiya lived there from 2008 for four to five years He and Chhabra were working together on casting and the tea shop became their adda a place where actors casting people and other film industry aspirants would meet They would find out from one another where auditions were happening who had gone for which audition and who was looking for whom It was an informal network before the industry had the kind of digital networks it has today The tea stall was where information travelledScreenwriters Raghav Raj Kakker left and Kashyap Kapoor say the building was unofficially called lsquoMini FTIIrsquoHe tells us ldquoIt was an informal network you found out about work simply by being around For fourfive years while I was there so much of my life happened there Mukesh and I were doing casting We would sit there meet people find out who had gone for which audition where the next one was happening who was looking for whom That was how you found work through people Even industry seniors lived there mdash so you had Raj Vinod Vineet Kumar Singh Manoj bhai and so many others around you And personally I did DDay while I was living there Delhi Crime season one was made while I was there My first car was there I fell in love there I had a breakup there So when you tell me Inlaks is going away it doesnrsquot feel like yoursquore just taking down a building We have seen a life thererdquoThe loneliness antidoteActor Ashish Verma known for his roles in Sui Dhaaga Article 15 Haseen Dillruba Atrangi Re Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya and Tere Ishk Mein as well as shows including InMates and Court Kacheri came to Inlaks in 2012 during his transition from FTII to Bombay He moved through D Block C Block and A Block over roughly two years The society was known to be friendly towards artistes and freelancers and people were willing to accommodate unconventional living arrangements including living in with his then partner now wife Ronjini ChakrabortyAmandeep KhubberHis own early years there were modest He remembers 10by10 rooms tworoom arrangements and sharing the space with filmmaker Avinash Arun ldquoI kind of graduated through the years At that point they would allow you to live there even if you were in a livein relationship When I got here from FTII to Bombay Inlaks became a very natural transition for us Divyenndu was there Deepak Nambiar was there Rajkummar was there There were so many of us The beautiful thing about that FTII gang is that we have seen each other growing We have seen each other at every stage Today we might all be busy we might not meet for months but nobody has really changed You meet again and you start from exactly where you left offrdquoldquoI remember Divyenndu around the time of Chashme Baddoor when he had just started shooting Avinash was a DOP then and he was working on a script on the side which he kept coming back to That eventually became Killa You were literally watching peoplersquos careers take shape around yourdquo he says For Verma Inlaks was also a mohalla It was almost like a hostel where every night there would be people around ldquoMumbai can be very lonely and the film industry can be brutal because actors are rejected every single day Here you would come home and there would be 1015 people around you It became this minihostel this community of people who were all trying to figure their lives out together And that is something I think you donrsquot easily recreaterdquoBut his reaction is far more pragmatic He says ldquoI am a strong believer in evolution so I donrsquot want to say that nothing should change Geography changes cities change and something more beautiful can come out of it A few of my friends have gone on to buy houses and move ahead in life But when you see Inlaks going into redevelopment you also realise that a very particular kind of space is disappearing the space that allowed all of us to be young broke and uncertain and still be in Bombay still be close to the industryrdquoA 300squareft sanctuaryFor screenwriter Kashyap Kapoor the Juhu boy who was introduced to this world by his writing partner Kakker Inlaks became their first workplace The duo whose credits include Inmates Class Faraaz and The Buckingham Murders have their office thereFor Kapoor the significance of that office was not simply that it was inexpensive ldquoInlaks in that sense is a safe space and a sanctuaryrdquo Kapoor says ldquoIt gave us the dignity of an office from a coffee shop If you get a sense of space irrespective of whatever that space is suddenly itrsquos yours and you are more responsible to your work There is a respect for space People come and work there There is that energyrdquoFrom that small room however their stories travelled ldquoWe have been able to write stories of Bangladesh the UK North India South India Manipur And I think that is one of the highlights of this place mdash that we could still be in Bombay and be cut off enough to say stories of the world We all spent years in this room together creating something that we were really proud of irrespective of whether it got made or notrdquoKapoor remembers the first big cheque they received at the office ldquoWe were literally one light two chairs and one table and arrives this big cheque and it felt like we have made it It is also so serendipitous the first show we wrote at this office an eightpart series for a leading platform went on floors last week It will be our last delivery from this space too It makes me also feel that this is a place where a lot of dreams come true for a lot of people including us So no matter how hard it gets the only way to make it here is to stay at it and someday many years from the day you wrote something it will be out there for the world to watch itrdquoThe professional high however was accompanied by the very ordinary realities of the building After returning from London following The Buckingham Murders they came back to Inlaks andthe monsoon arrived ldquoWe came back and it started raining and our roof started falling on our heads quite literally We spent a day mopping the ceilings and the walls laughing about the irony called liferdquoThat Midas touchArtiste manager Amandeep Khubber remembers another Inlaks entirely She left her home earlier this month after an eviction notice was sent to those renting apartments Her memory of the place is not of the crowds outside but of looking out from her windowDuring lockdown there was a small ground below her house She spent much of her day at the window She began noticing the birds There were different kinds every day There was a pair of hummingbirds that she would sit and watch There were monkeys tooShe lived in the same house from 2017 to 2021 and eventually it became her office ldquoI didnrsquot necessarily move to Inlaks because I wanted my immediate social circle to be there but if I look at my career I grew 100 per cent while I was living in that house I took a sabbatical in 2023 and when I went independent in 2024 I really saw the shift I registered my own company and suddenly actors started approaching me for representation Manoj and Seemaji Suvinder Vicky Vijayant sir these are some of the people I associate with that phase of my life Mehoob Brar was also working on Operation Safed Sagar the newest hit show on the streamer while he was thererdquoldquoI sometimes joke that Inlaks had a Midas touch I donrsquot know what it was about that place but people seemed to grow there I could work from there live there and have this very quiet space while my career was changing completely Thatrsquos what I will miss most mdash not just the building but what that house represented for merdquolsquoWhere will the artiste liversquoThat is what Kapoor finds hardest to reconcile with the redevelopment ldquoThis was the last bastion of those who are starting outrdquo he says ldquoThe artiste who used to come who needed a house in his budget who wanted to live in Versovahellip Because now where will the people liverdquoHe points to the old Shah Rukh Khan story the outsider who arrived in Bombay and became its biggest star ldquoThere is always a growing conversation about how artistes are not getting a place in Mumbai The classic Shah Rukh Khan story that he came from far and became the king That story can never be made again because we are not leaving a place for himrdquoFor people who grew up around Inlaks that is what makes its redevelopment sting The building is changing at exactly the moment when the city around it has become increasingly difficult for the people who once made it For some perspective and wisdom we reached out to a filmmakeractor whose Inlaks story of living there for decades is apparently put down into a script and is parked with a streamer She and husband moved to Mumbai in 1994 where they built a life together in this very society She told us ldquoWell life moves on As for artistes they are a resilient bunch they will find their wayrdquoPerhaps she is right Because right now the set of Ram Gopal Varmarsquos Daya Nayak biopic is parked right next to the crumbling building Its leading man is Harshvardhan Rane who left home at 16 struggled for eight years before landing his first acting gig It took him 26 years to give the biggest hit of his career last year Well dreamers do find their wayBroker SpeakRealestate broker Mohit Sharma says the numbers around Inlaks tell a very different story from the era remembered by its former residents ldquoToday a 1BHK in and around Inlaks and Yari Road can command roughly Rs 45000 to Rs 55000 a month depending on the building condition and furnishing In the society till last year rent was in a similar range You can find lower or higher quotes but the old idea of getting a decent 1BHK in this part of Versova for the kind of rent artistes once paid is simply not realistic anymorerdquo Recent 2026 listings around Yari Road and Inlaks show 1BHKs at about Rs 53000 with numbers going up to Rs 1 lakh for 2BHK homes