IF YOU walk down the row of ragtag shophouses in Rowell Road crammed with hardware shops and alive with the hustle and bustle of business, you will come upon a still, quiet art gallery at the end.

It is part of Post-Museum, a new contemporary arts space that is the latest addition to the creative community taking shape in the Little India road over the past two to three years.

Just down the road is The Museum of Shanghai Toys. Independent gallery Your Mother Gallery is a stone's throw away in Hindoo Road. An informal arts gathering space, The Other House, is also nearby.

Artists, interior designers, fashion designers, graphic design firms, a video production house and an advertising firm have been making themselves right at home in Rowell and Hindoo roads.

Some might baulk at their choice of location - prostitutes walk the street at sundown - but the creative gang say the spicy mix of people, accessible location and low rents are what keeps them there.

Cheap rent is definitely a big draw.

There are 23 State-owned shophouses in Rowell Road and another 18 in Hindoo Road, managed by United Premas, which rents them out. There are also privately owned shophouses that are available for rent.

Monthly rentals for the State properties range from $1,000 to more than $2,000, depending on the size.

Artist Jeremy Hiah, 35, who runs Your Mother Gallery in Hindoo Road, pays $800 for a 900 sq ft shophouse managed by United Premas.

This is a bargain compared to some other artist hideouts elsewhere.

For example, in Chip Bee Gardens in Holland Village, the rent for a 1,356 sq ft house starts at $3,300 a month.

At hip Wessex Estate off Portsdown Road, a 1,249 sq ft work loft is rented out for $2,500 to $3,000 a month.

For p-10, the art collective which runs Post-Museum, the love affair with Little India started in 2004. That was when the five artists who make up the group rented a unit in a block of walk-up apartments in Perumal Road, yet another bohemian enclave a few streets away. They still use the space for art exhibitions and work spaces.

They opened Post-Museum in September, to host different types of creative people in its studios, and to engage the non-arts communities there through interactive activities such as workshops.

Ms Jennifer Teo, 32, Post-Museum's director, says: 'It's a very historical place and very real. It's not like Chinatown, which is a packaged tourist attraction.'

The approximately 4,000 sq ft space is owned by businessman Chua Ma Un, who lets it out at $10,000 a month.

The buildings used to house a motorcycle repair shop and a brothel, among other things.

Which brings up another draw - the colourful neighbourhood that is Little India.

Artist Woon Tien Wei, 32, a member of p-10, says: 'This place has different layers of communities and a lot of character. It's not so gentrified yet. It doesn't even feel like Singapore on the weekends when there are so many migrant workers around the place.'

Designer-artist Foo Ai Wei, 29, who lives in Rowell Road, says with a laugh: 'The kopitiam plays loud music, and the women there also sing karaoke. People think it's noisy but I'm actually immune to it.'

The designer of fashion label See You Tomorrow (www.seeutomorrow.com), who shares a flat in a shophouse, says her neighbours are mostly retirees and foreign workers.

She says: 'It's a different kind of neighbourhood, not your regular HDB flat. There are all kinds of people, Indian workers, gangsters - it's quite happening.'

Hiah and his wife, who have a baby girl, used to live in their rented Hindoo Road shophouse but moved to his in-laws' home recently to take care of his ailing father-in-law.

But he plans to keep the gallery going.

'Holland Village? Forget it, it's so expensive. It's not my cup of tea, it's more Westernised.'

Working in Little India does have its challenges though. He remembers a recent incident where a man went up to a group of women artists standing outside Post-Museum and asked them: 'How much?'

'We shooed them away,' he says. 'Still, we usually mind our own business, and they mind theirs. It's Singapore here, it can't be that dangerous.'

He also highlights the conveniences in the area: Farrer Park MRT station is a 10-minute walk away and the 24-hour shoppers' paradise Mustafa Centre is just around the corner.

But what do the other denizens of the area think of these arty types living and working among them?

Madam Kelly Chan, 43, who runs a 17-year-old hardware business in Rowell Road, says: 'Maybe they are here for the nostalgic, old houses. But we don't really mix.

'Let's hope that this doesn't become another Mohamed Sultan, where rents shot up because it became trendy.'

Mr Jimmy Yap, 47, an employee of an electrical shop at 89 Rowell Road, has noticed the Post-Museum's new gallery, but has never stepped in due to 'lack of interest'.

But he has a theory about the influx of artists.

'These people can find inspiration in this neighbourhood, where things are more unusual,' he says. 'I don't think you can do the same work in a shopping mall.'