Chandivali is a suburb of North Central Mumbai situated between Saki Naka and the Powai lake. Chandivali is surrounded by the Powai hillocks on the south-east and the Powai lake on the north. It is amongst those suburbs in Mumbai which has rapidly developed in a short span of time along with increasing pollution and traffi
c jams. Chandivali was earlier a village along with its neighbour Tunga which is still known by its old name of Tungwa Gaon and was a part of Andheri (East) [1] Chandivali has got its recent fame because of its proximity to the nearby Powai area which is now a very popular leisure and business destination. A landmark of this area is the small but famous Chandivali studio [3], also known as Chandivali outdoor location which is on the Chandivali farm road. The Studio was founded by Mr. Chandrarao Ganpatrao Kadam in the early forties when this was a distant suburb of Andheri.Chandrarao Kadam was an actor, producer and director of silent and talking pictures in the early thirties. He had shared the screen space with noted artists of the thirties amongst them Lalita Pawar, Bhagwan Dada, and Hansa Wadkar as his coartists. He had also acted under eminent directors of yester years like G.P.Pawar, Moti Gidwani, Dhirubhai Desai, S.M.Yusuf, Nanabhai Bhatt, Jayant Desai and Behran Vasania. While pursuing his passion for acting and directing films, he nurtured an idea to build a film studio for which he purchased land at Chandivali.It took him a long time to develop various locations and convert it to a fully fledged studio for shooting his own films and letting out the studio to other producers. The Studio comprises various indoor and outdoor locations like the Den, Garden, Village, Temple, Pond side, Roadside areas Godown, Indoor House and Bedroom sets etc. Since then it has been a long journey for the studio. It has witnessed the success of all the stalwarts of the Indian film and television industries in various categories like actors, directors, producers and technicians. Chandivali studio shares a goodwill in the Indian film and Television industry as most films and TV serials shot here have been eminently successful. It also is a nostalgic place for many actors and technicians who started their career from the same studio as humble artistes, one of them being Mr Amitabh Bachan.He started his career at this very studio with the movie Saat Hindustani. He also shot at this Studio for Coolie,Deewar Nasseb and Khuddar etc. which all went on to become super hits. The studio is still being managed by the Kadam family. The development of Chandivali as a residential area started with the Mhada colony which came up in 1992.This was followed up by another landmark destination of Raheja Vihar and [6] Lok Milan From here on, there was no looking back for this area and Nahar Amrit Shakti is another huge residential destination .However some remnants of the old residential colonies are still there like the Mannubhai chawl situated on Chandivali farm road. Of late Chandivali is attracting companies as a business destination and new offices are being opened every other day. [4] [5] Oberoi Garden is an office building complex situated here next to the Chandivali Studio. ICICI Bank and HDFC banks have huge back offices situated in this area.Chandivali is now home to “Boomerang” a huge IT and business park. A popular local weekly community newspaper Planet Powai regularly reports news, events and shopping information about this area. This area had very few shopping destinations and one had to go to Hiranandani Powai for all shopping needs but with the opening up of the multi-storey Dmart shopping centre right next to Nahar Amrit Shakti, this need has also been addressed.