another foray into the glorious circus that is bombay. and written by a new yorker who grew up in jackson heights, no less! great, entertaining cultural anthropology. worth a read.

A native-Bombay boy returns to the newly christened Mumbai after living in New York. Started out as a wonderful narrative that reflected my own thoughts, criticisms and fears of returning to the homeland. Its an interesting read but requires some patience to get through.

Mehta delves into various aspects of the underworld and its control over the city of Bombay - which is fascinating, but I echo Sabrina's sentiments - homeboy could have used an editor. There were stretches of pages that were quite repetitive, and uninteresting; however, for what its worth - it still has some great insights on the homeland.

Some quotes that resonate:

In the context of moving back into the apartment complex he had grown up in, "I am afraid that one of these days I'll meet myself, the stranger within, coming or going. The body, safely interred in the grave, will rise and crouching, loping, come up to me from behind."

In the context of inefficient governance, and the arbitrary renaming of cities: "The government can't make the physical city a better place, but they can call it by a different name."

One of the most interesting books about Bombay I've read after Shantaram. Describes the seedy underbelly as well as the fighting indomitable spirit of the Bombayites . Definitely a must read for those who love Bombay & it's people.

the best book revealing the bitter truths that the city people face daily

If you can not relate yourself with Mumbai, probably you will not like it. If Mumbai makes you curious, even just by movies, you will love good portion of the book.

I loved part 1: Power. Suketu writes a gripping tale of riots, underworld and Mumbai police's interrogation and encounters.

Chapter six made me yawn. I didn't find description of Irani hotel menu interesting.

Chapter called "A city in heat" is good read which takes you in the world of night bar girls.

Chapter "Distilleries of Pleasure" is waste of time when he writes making of mission kasmir. But story of mahesh bhatt's struggle with censor board is interesting. Other than this, you can give pass to this chapter.

Sukteu should be sued for writing "Memory lanes" chapter. Dude! Why do you think that I would be interested in finer details of your school function?

Chapter "sone ki Chidiya" is readable, but if you want to give it a pass, you are not loosing any thing.

Suketu should be killed for writing chapter "good bye" world.


The part 1 is really gripping and worth reading. After that Suketu starts writing garbage at many places. By the time you finish the book, you do not feel "wow".

A portrait of Bombay.
The author grew up in the city, but left and spend some 20 years in western cities, around the world, before returning for a two and a half year period, with his family. The book consists of three parts: One on the Bombay mafia, "Power", one on the entertainment industry, both sex and movies, "Pleasure", and one part called "Passages"�, a collection of portraits which didn't fit in the other two parts, the largest of which is about a family turning Jain monks (walking the world without possessions).

Parts of the book are extremely well done, where Mehta is able to go much deeper than the more superficial observations of the individuals he encounters, works and talks with. However, most of the book is, more likely, only really of value to readers in one way or another familiar with the city itself, to people who can relate to the individuals, architecture or feelings Mehta describes. It is therefore no surprise that most of the authors who are quoted on the book's sleeve, positively commenting on the book, all have some Indian connection.

Several times, Mehta seems to make veiled but negative comments on the Indian middle class. Is it that he's afraid he's middle class himself? His description of the Bombay underworld is extremely interesting and shows a world tied together with Indian politics and, more than once, reminded me of what you find in many African countries, with governments so corrupt, development of the nation halts.
But maybe India is too big, too populous, for the many bad apples to have an effect on the overall taste. Or, then again, maybe Indians are just too much used to the bad apples in the bunch and take them for granted.

The book is really insignificant. It picks one character each from the ubderbellies of the city and regurgitates the author's conversation with them (even small gestures and actions are just described verbatim). This postman's job has ensured we have a long 581 pages book in what could have been a crisper 200 pages. It has zero impact on the reader. Also this book is not relevant in today's times, as much has changed. He generalized his characters to make them appear as general stories of the city. An easily missable book.

This book could have been called "Maximum Shithole" because the Bombay it portrays is disgusting, rank, infested by crooks and killers and sleazy, abusive characters.

Mehta has written a lyrical and engaging work. But in pursuit of his sensationalist narrative, Mehta all but ignores the everyday lives of regular people in Bombay. The city he portrays is a city of extremes, because he has chosen only the most extreme lives to follow. Half the book is spent with the gangsters and murderers of the Bombay underworld, but the struggles of the honest people they victimize are summarized in a few sentences. The only women who seem to exist at all in this Maximum City are prostitutes and gangsters' molls. He cherry-picks these anecdotes to support his thesis. His Bombay is extreme because he discounts everything about it that is not extreme.

It is an entertaining enough book, but it is sensationalist, larger than life, as carefully crafted for extremity of narrative as the Bollywood scripts he shows contempts for (even while he is writing them). It is not an honest or relatable portrayal of workaday life in Bombay. Go in with that expectation, and you will enjoy the book. I went in hoping to learn something of the lives of regular folks who occupy this bizarre and fascinating city, and I was frustrated at every turn.

I'm having a difficult time finishing this book. I usually read it for a few days and then need a break due to the overwhelming detail and drama that Mehta inserts into his prose. I honestly liked the beginning of the book in which Mehta made me feel as though I could see Bombay: crowding around a street stall for the best food in town, the need to bribe every public official for every little (and big) convenience, the dearth of toilets, the omnipresent din, the rich, the poor, etc. But now I'm stuck on a section where Mehta is fixated upon a beer bar girl. It seems overly "male gaze" to me, especially when the previous section was his expose of the gangwar. He's a drooling, over-eager fourteen-year-old boy--a fourteen year old boy who then goes home to his wife and child and has fancy dinner parties--and I can't help rolling my eyes. I know I'm totally ignorant since I've never been to Bombay, but it's as if someone wrote a book about NYC and just wrote about partying with strippers from Scores and rolling with gang bangers then retired every evening to their loft in Soho. Give me a break, Mehta, and decide whether you're a journalist or a memoirist. You can't be both.

I toyed with creating a new category for this book: "Nonfiction Stranger Than Fiction." But no. Some of the stories and experiences of people that this book chronicles do seem very far-fetched (say, to mention just one out of several dozen, the former newspaper cartoonist who becomes boss of one of the strongest Hindu fundamentalist parties in the country – an Indian Rush Limbaugh – and who provokes some of the most violent riots in the country’s history.) But it is all believable once you recognize that the world is a far meaner, violent, corrupt, or at least a far different place than one would probably imagine living in one of the wealthier countries on the planet.

Although the Maximum City of the title is Bombay, this book is also - and I would say primarily - about poverty, more precisely, the extremes of existence that poverty creates; extremes of tolerance and intolerance, violence and benevolence, community and isolation. Even in chapters that do not directly deal with poverty, such as the excellent chapter on the Indian film industry, the desperate masses are never far from the author’s focal point.

One of my dozen-or-so favorite episodes from this book is "Adjust," a passage about the Bombay train system. Toward the end of this section, a man whose job it is to monitor communal violence and religious flare-ups within the Bombay slums - in short, someone who regularly sees some of the worst aspects of humanity - is asked if he is pessimistic about the human race. He responds "Not at all.... Look at the hands from the train." He is referring to all of the hands that stretch out of the train cars when someone is running alongside the train car, reaching to pull you in. It is one of several very beautiful passages, and all I can do is quote from it at length:

“Your fellow passengers, already packed tighter than cattle are legally allowed to be, their shirts already drenched in sweat in the badly ventilated compartments, having stood like this for hours, retain an empathy for you, know that your boss might yell at you or cut your pay if you miss the train, and will make space where none exists to take one more person with them. And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand that is reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Brahmin or untouchable …. All they know is that you are trying to get to the city of gold, and that’s enough.”

One of the most engrossing books I’ve read about India, and in particular Mumbai. Raw and unflinching its portrayal, the author peels off layer upon layers from the façade of Mumbai - one of the world's most well-known cities, thanks to Bollywood and its financial status. Outstanding in every way!

I read this after reading The Siege because this book is referred to several times in that one.

The book chronicles the lives of several people in the city of Mumbai (Bombay). Because the focus shifts on each section of the book. I found the section on the bar dancers, police, and mobs to be the most interesting. The section on Bollywood just seemed lacking somehow. The last section combing school and religion was a little better.

Even though I enjoyed it, I found the section about the bar dancers to be problematic because it seems to be an almost too romantic a view, even though it really isn’t romantic at all. It almost is a too facile look and even too much of an outside look. It’s strange.

Still it is really worth a read.