who kept falling ill moved them out to other brothels in mulund bhandup and ghatkopar but procuring new girls was also becoming difficult says thanekar this and other factors a reluctance among landlords newly aware of aids to lease out their premises to prostitution spiralling rents police raids and the emergence of a new generation of financiers who got into more lucrative ventures hastened the downward spiral of prostitution in kamathipura the reconstruction wave of dilapidated buildings completed the process several people were bought out by the builders says a brothel owner gangubai chawl on 11th kamathipura lane was among the first to be torn down and reconstructed into a sixstorey building by a private developer normal households moved in the stigma attached to kamathipura began to dwindle somewhat and the newly reconstructed prostitution dens began to be put to other uses for the last four years businessmen have been renting out the infamous rooms to small manufacturing units mohammed israr a 22yearold native of bihar who assembles travel bags for a local manufacturer has rented 600 sq feet in a onestorey structure in kamathipura he pays a stiff monthly rent of rs 12000 for the space but says that its worth the money given the central location abdul sattar a local panbeedi stall owner on lane 13 has been in the business for the last 15 years earlier sex workers clients frequented my stall he says there were a lot of goons and hangerson around now proper businessmen come here its a welcome change as people working in the vicinity are no longer looked down upon there was a time when we were ashamed to tell our relatives that we lived and worked in kamathipura but not any more adds sadiq ismail who owns a consumer goods shop on 12th kamathipura lane i live in a house above my shop with my wife three sons and a daughter there is nothing shameful about living here any more street named desire kamathipura is mumbais oldest and asias largest red light district it got its name from the kamathis workers of andhra pradesh they worked as labourers on construction sites the neighbourhood also had chinese residents who worked as dockhands and ran restaurants kamathipura was formerly lal bazaar an area set aside by the british for their troops sexual pleasures by the end of the 19th century lal bazaar was known as a tolerated area as prostitution was illegal at the time bombay and to a lesser extent calcutta were the most important cities in an expanding prostitution network cursetji shuklaji street in kamathipura was called safed gully as it was home to european prostitutes the brothels here were classified into first second and third class in 1916 the british set up the venereal disease clinic the first of its kind in bombay the bmc took over the clinic in 1925 pleasure island the purest form of afghan afeem opium was available only at bachchuseth ki