Bungalow 5

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Owned and developed by filmmaker and restaurateur Prahlad Kakar, 14C Boran Road has turned into quite a random house. In this pretty cottage, you’ll find a dive shop, a marine conservation NGO, a kitchen that caters to outdoor shoots, a bakery, and a prop shop in the attic.

Eau Baby!

Pretty mosaic fish tiles and an aqua door lead you to The Dive Shop, an offshoot of marine lifestyle company The Life Aquatic with Lacadives. Designed to look more like a living room, this “store” displays bright yellow and pink snorkel masks and diving glasses on a grand piano, features a book case filled with volumes on marine information, and allocates a generous amount of space to comfy seating. Even if it means relegating the actual rack of dive equipment to a nondescript corner, which stocks wet suits, underwater cameras, bag packs, candy coloured flippers and other accessories. But what Life Aquatic instructor Jurgen van Duffel really wants to show off is a shipment of underwater computers – watch-like gadgets that give you details about your dive – expected to arrive soon.

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For Bake’s Sake

Sea biscuits, crab cakes, bread and water...we’re trying to imagine what connection a dive shop would have with a bakery, because also moving in soon is Pune-based Cupcakes n Cookies. Here, New York returned banker-turned baker Tarini Naravani will make biscuits, breads, cakes and other treats from scratch, which you can enjoy in a garden cafe to the sound of music. Sweet!

More Tenants

Previously a home delivery headquarter for Kakar’s Papa Pancho, the kitchen here now provides catering services for outdoor film shoots. Meanwhile, a jumble of props from the filmmaker’s own TV commercials and movies – curtains, wigs, furniture, even a grand piano – can be rented from the prop shop upstairs.

Finding our Feet

Kakar promises that every visit to this bizarre bungalow will be different. During our sneak peek, he offered to read our feet while we tried on scuba flippers. What will happen next time? Drop in on opening day – June 11! – and find out.

Getting there: 14 C, Boran Road, tiny lane opposite Globus, Hill Road, Bandra (W), opens June 11, Dive equipment from brands like Tusa and Aqua Lung starts at Rs 2,000.