Living up to the HYPE: Mumbai's new luxury dance club

If you’re opening a massive Mumbai nightclub called (It's All About) HYPE, you can’t possibly be a reclusive sort. And club owner Aqeel Ali is far from that. He's also one of India’s top DJ-producers. 

"I always wanted to start a club of my own, and I always knew I’d call it Hype," says the jet-setter DJ in between boarding a plane to Udaipur and tweeting about tour dates in Delhi, Australia, Dubai and New York.

Hype is unabashedly billed as "the country’s first luxury nightclub," boasting 7,000 square feet of "clubbing bliss" in the heart of South Mumbai. "It's the most exclusive place in Mumbai. The clientele is exclusive, the décor is exclusive, even the alcohol is exclusive," the visibly proud owner says. 

Despite the fact that it’s located inside a mall -- which at first glance would seem an odd choice of address -- Hype has slowly been gaining credibility since its relatively low-key opening in late December 2009. Low key, in this case, translates to 'Bollywood's A-List only.'

"I tried looking for a five-star hotel in which to locate the club, but couldn’t find one that suited my needs," says Ali. So the "hedonistic top-of-the-line super entertainment venue" anchored itself inside Atria Mall at Worli, providing a much-needed trump card for SoBo’s thinning old-money crowd to flash at their hip-and-happening Northern neighbors.

The mall itself shuts at 10:30pm, just around the time Mumbai’s minxes hit the hot spots, so once you get over the eerie image of high heels walking past shuttered luxury stores in a deserted mall, the club itself becomes context-free. 

Aqeel spared no expense in kitting out the club to the tune of 1,200 diamond-shaped, colour-changing crystal lights adorning the ceiling, personalized table and bottle service, private booths, luxury merchandise, sexy hostesses and swanky champagne lists enticing you to dish out the dough and feel like royalty in return. 

The real treat, though, is the clubbing experience itself.

A state-of-the-art Funktion-One sound system makes for crystal-clear highs and thumping lows that’ll have you on the dance floor all night, damn the private booths.

Its calendar of events includes international DJs flown in once a week from nightclubs around the world to play a crowd-pleasing mix of electronica and hip-hop, with Aqeel playing there twice a month too to keep the personalized glam factor going.

And even though Aqeel is famed for his Bollywood remixes, don’t expect to hear much of it at HYPE. 

"Except for a couple of Bollywood tracks on Fridays and Saturdays, HYPE’s sound will be a global one," he soothes.

Before you get all excited. Membership to HYPE is by invitation only. If you’re not one of its 400 founder members (or not networked enough to be invited by one of them), your only hope is to show up dressed to kill (no stags, please) clutching a hot date and a wad of cash, hoping that the general admission gods smile favorably on you.

Is Hype the shot in the arm that Mumbai’s pathetically lukewarm clubbing scene needs? We hope so.

The promises are grandiose and the potential boundless. Expansion plans include branches in Delhi, Hyderabad, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and London. But despite its name, HYPE the club will have to withstand the pressure that every Mumbai club faces at some point in its existence, and that means it'll either go Bollywood or bust. 

HYPE, Atria, The Millenium Mall, R1, 4th Floor, Dr Annie Beasant Road, Worli; tel. +91 (0) 22 2481 3799, +91 90047 75777; www.hypetheclub.com or better still DJ Aqeel's Twitter page for the latest club updates. 

Wednesday-Saturday, 10pm onwards. Entry charge per couple Rs 2,000 (Wednesdays and Thursdays), Rs 3,000 (Fridays and Saturdays).