There are booths surrounding the dancefloor manned by waiters who’ll offer to light your cigarette There are no obvious drug casualties It’s all just so much more civilised than I’m used to. But then, entry costs 800 rupees (£13) per couple (it’s considered inappropriate to go dancing alone) and the drinks are at London prices, so I suppose anywhere charging the equivalent in England would be more civilised than I’m used to as well.The club was set up 18 months ago by the son of a wealthy diamond merchant; and Dishal Shetty, one of its co-owners and managers, convinced me that it’s not about the money “I want people to follow me. The more clubs there are and the more competitive it is, the better, because that’s how the culture grows.” How many British club promoters would ask for more competition these days? He’s passionate and knowledgeable about the music and has the zeal of those pioneering DJs who first imported club culture from Ibiza to the UK He just has far more resources than they did. Which, as his patrons are well off and often well travelled, is just as well. “If you want to open their minds to possibilities here, you have to present them with an international level of club.”On this particular Thursday, Fire and Ice was host to its first superstar guest DJ, Dave Pearce, who was in Bombay to help to launch Radio 1’s “Travel Essentials” service.

The last time he DJed in the city was as a teenager when he got his first job playing disco and early American house to film stars at Studio 29.Visibly nervous, Pearce had no idea whether the Fire and Ice crowd had heard of him, or whether they’d understand his hard house set. But he soon realised he was playing to a knowledgeable crowd. The club’s resident DJ was encouraging him to play his harder records and even had a copy of a single from Pearce’s own label. In the end the only way Pearce modified his set was to move away from those euphoric breakdowns that make sense only on Ecstasy towards a more percussive sound.

“I thought, if you’ve come especially to see this guy, the last thing you want is for him to tailor his set and not play what he’s known for,” he told me afterwards. “The young people I met this time are much more aware of what’s going on in Europe and the rest of the world.”Modernity has been creeping into traditional Indian pop music ever since A R Rahman revolutionised Hindi film scores with the use of a synthesiser or two. A growing percentage of the charts is taken up by remixes of 1950s and 1960s film music that appeal to two generations of cinemagoers. And in the past 10 years India’s airwaves have been deregulated, so where there was just one radio station there are now 38 which, with alongside Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV, have brought in Western pop. You won’t hear much dance music on any of them, but it’s still early days.

Of course, those who are interested can find out everything they need to know about dance music on the internet. Since the monopoly on internet service provision ended in 1998, that has been fuelling Bombay’s growing club culture.Fire and Ice get a lot of records from London but most of their music comes from the net. In line with the Indian clubbers’ thirst for knowledge, Shetty encourages his DJs to announce the tracks they’re playing over the mic (though there was no sign of this when I was there) so beat mixing isn’t such a priority. Add to this the difficulty of importing vinyl and of safely storing it in the heat, and it becomes clear why clubs tend to play their music from CDs.