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I was supposed to read Maximum City before or during the time I went to India. However I was swept away by Shantaram, then slightly offended by The White Tiger, and went into a slight depression after reading Behind Beautiful Forevers. I had had enough of India and all its struggles. I did feel from my personal physical experience of India in conjunction with the story telling of authors that were either Indian or an adopted Indian, that I began to understand the country and how it’s people are molded into ambitious, hardworking and spiritual souls.

I picked up Maximum City again before my trip to Nepal to revive and add to the knowledge of South Asia. Yes, I know that Nepal is not India but we can acknowledge that there are glaring similarities in religion, food, culture and lifestyle. The city streets and buildings of Kathmandu look the same but the population is infinitely less dense than Mumbai, which makes Kathmandu a breath of fresh air in comparison

Absolutely brilliant.

My goal in reading this book was to get some context about Bombay before visiting for the first time. I realized that the book was not itself a history of the city but I had hoped that there would be sufficient background provided to help me understand Bombay as it exists today and then to illustrate some of the ways in which it is unique. I probably should have done more research on the nature of the book since it mostly failed to meet my goal.

The bits of historical context ended up being few and far between. When I did come across them - such as a description of the impact of rent control imposed in the 1940s - they were quite interesting and enlightening, which really makes me wish there had been more. As for understanding the city as it exists today, Maximum City is probably more interesting for people who have lived in the city and already understand the surface of it very well. Most of the characters that Mehta profiled - gangsters and exotic dancers among them - live in the shadows so understanding their lives in the city is not as valuable to me (as a brief visitor) as learning more about the more visible demographics, say shopkeepers or rickshaw drivers.

Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed pieces of the book very much but found long stretches hard to get through. Perhaps I will give it another read after I've spent more time in the city.

I'm fascinated by the hype over Mehta's travelogue. This book portrays women as objects, poor people as criminals, and the Bollywood elite as deserving the resentment of a bitter New York based writer who can't quite find a place in the city of his youth.
So I'm struggling to understand what all the hype is about.
This is not, contrary to what reviews would lead us to believe, a book about Bombay. Instead, it's a book about being an outsider, and it does a decent job grappling with alienation and nostalgia. It's also a book about misogyny and elitism, at least as experienced by an unsympathetic narrator.
But as a book about Bombay, I think I missed something critical here. There is the glitz of Bollywood, the glam of dancing girls, the grime of the underworld. But there is nothing about the city: a city that is so much more than the stereotypes Mehta is fixated upon. I felt dirty after reading this book, like a voyeur who realizes the implications of their own gaze.

A lot of purple prose here, but some of it is really justified. After all, when you're surrounded by Muslim gangsters, Jainist monks, underage call girls, and Bollywood movie producers, all set against the backdrop of one of the world's strangest and filthiest cities, you're allowed to use a little literary hyperbole.

Mehta's a journalist who returns to his hometown of Bombay to explore the underworld and write some in-depth portraits of its denizens. He does a great job of it, even though he himself sometimes comes off as a little bit of a prig. Characters like Vinod, Honey, Kamal and Ajay are all richly drawn, and their whole environment really comes alive. I like the wealthy mafia hit man who refuses to leave his tin shack in the Jogeswhari slums because he can't sleep without at least 6 people in a room, or the police inspector who openly tortures dozens of suspected criminals in front of Mehta without even a concern for prosecution. The whole book is just filled with these surreal little scenes.

Mehta even provides a good political background to things like the BJP party's unfathomable power in the city (they successfully banned Valentine's day through simple mob violence) and Bombay's strange brand of Hindu nationalism. One surprising aspect here is how pervasive the influence of Pakistan is in the underworld, all the gangster dons are directing their forces from Karachi (or occasionally Dubai), and the ISI is clearly arming chawla thugs in the slums with grenades and AK-47s. It seems like most of the lives in the book unconsciously revolve around the aftershocks from the 1947 partition. And as the recent bombing shows, the aftershocks won't stop anytime soon.

The book helped me understand my country better. Gave me the chance to know more about individuals and communities that one is often curious about.
The book is thought provoking and definitely a read for those looking to know more about the city and country.

As much as I liked the book, and discovered new facts about the city where I spent most of my early teens and early 20s, there are a few places where the author seems drifting. The context reaching up to the elaborate discussions about Mission Kashmir seemed unnecessary in many places. The comprehensive words about the life in Bombay are so relevant to any person who has spent a significant time in the city, that at one point you actually visualise the life in the city. People who have lived here, don't miss reading this at least once.

I'll be the first to admit this review may not be entirely fair--This happened to be the book I started reading around Christmas-time, when my attention span is fragmented at best, and at one point, I stopped reading books altogether and just read magazines for a week, as that was all my mental capacity would allow, but this book also had the disadvantage of having 1) long chapters, rendering it difficult to digest and 2) unnumbered chapters, which is a pet peeve of mine.

But even with these three strikes against it, I started out really liking this book. Mehta, who grew up in India and moved to the U.S. as a teen, moves his family (himself, wife, two small children) from New York City to Mumbai (formerly, of course, Bombay) for the writing of this book and to reconnect with the city and country that made him. The first chapter, Personal Geography, is a bang-up start, with Mehta and family experiencing culture shock and learning (or re-learning) how to negotiate with and navigate around the people of India. I loved it.

But then followed a very, very, very long chapter on gang life, and another long chapter on the police, in which Mehta is repulsed by, attracted to, and enamored of the assassins and street toughs and brutal police detectives to the point of my boredom. After that came a section about the "bar girls," dancers (not usually prostitutes, but sometimes) who perform fully clothed in saris while men shower money upon them. Mehta becomes obsessed with an aspiring but untalented model he names Monalisa, and it gets a little creepy--what about the wife and kids while he's out running around with her? Then he gets a job as a screenwriter for a Bollywood movie, and zzzzzzzzzzzz. It picked up again at the end (or maybe it's because it was the New Year, and my focus returned), when he follows a diamond merchant's family as they renounce their lives for Jainism, but at that point I just. wanted. to. be. done. with. this. book.

A disappointment, since I've wanted to read this for years. But I'm still not sure it's all the book's fault.

Maximum City is a like a wild ride through the teeming streets of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. Journalist Suketu Mehta returns to the city of his youth to write a book about the experience, and the result is a lively and rambling ride through one of the most densely populated cities in the world. It is a personal odyssey as much as an opportunity to survey the violence, corruption, and sin of the city. The book is basically divided into three sections Power (mostly about organized crime), Pleasure (which is mostly about what is known in Japan as the “water trade”- i.e. prostitution and its other manifestations of it, like beer bars), and Passages (which is essentially profiles of the poor and destitute). The strength of the book lies in his vivid descriptions of the streets of the city and the social customs of what he calls the city of “No”-where nothing can be done without personal connections or bribery. Then there’s organized crime, the film industry, public attitudes toward the personal and the private, the filth and the poverty. It all comes alive in this entertaining book. Honestly, a bit of editing could have been useful-although most of it was compelling; I got bogged down in the second half of the book after such a promising start. The 1993 riots emerge as a defining event that has set the tone for how the city operates years after the horrible riots among Hindus and Muslims. The myriad of religions, castes, and traditions seem overwhelming at times, but it is certainly an eye opener to complexities of Mumbai. I feel the need to experience it sometime, I certainly wouldn’t want to live there after reading the description of daily life there, but it seems to be a worthwhile experience to have first hand-sure to be an assault of the senses.

Mumbai, a city which never sleeps, a city of dreams, a city of lights and fast life. Mumbai, earlier called Bombay, has many names. This city has attracted people from all parts of India to come and change their life. But does their life improved from that of in the village or they created a different world of their own. Being born and bought up in Mumbai, never thought how the life will be for people who come from villages or other part of India. Also the two categories of people, lower and middle class, whose life has many ups and down, middle class people (like me) don't know what it is like to be in their shoes.

For me, Mumbai was a place where I grew up, many things in the city were normal to me. People who grew up in other cities, saw a different side of Mumbai and came here to chase their dreams. From 1990's till 2000, Mumbai as a city has experience best and worst, from Bomb blast to the emergence of don, from the rise of Marathi community to fight between Hindu and Muslim. Maximum City by Suketu Mehta is a collection of stories from various people and shedding some light on unheard Bombay life. Suketu, an NRI, who went to each and every corner of city to interview these people and got their perspective on the various situations. He had courage to approach not just poor, but also people with power like Bal Thakery and Chota Rajan.

The areas covered in 'Maximum City' are as glamour as Bollywood, to as depressing as that of people living in slums. In his research, he also talks about bar dancers who were quite famous and a big source of income for females and transgender. The author spent quite a lot time with Vidhu Vinod Chopra during his film 'Mission Kashmir' and also dig out information on the rise of D company and Daud.

As I was reading this book, I myself saw a different side of Mumbai. Many parts of the book, facts about Mumbai were new to me (In 1990's, I was too small to realise what was happening around me). At some point, I felt blessed that I was part of a community which was not affected by tragedies Mumbai's lower class faced. There was no happy ending in this book neither any lessons. It was a collection of stories and point of view of many people living, struggling, surviving in the city of lights to fulfil their dream of better living.

Maximum City is for those who wish to see a different side of Mumbai, a side which is scary and sad. A side which is honest and political. A side which has all types of people (except middle class). A side which is not known to all.. Maximum City as title says," Mumbai Lost and Found!".

Very interesting if you care to learn how the streets/underground works in Mumbai. The book does a great job in describing Mumbai as if it were a living, breathing animal. Tons of history can be learned as well as interesting behaviors/facts about the crazy city.

I'm officially giving up on this book.... Too many other things I want to read, so I'm done being tortured! I'm rather tired of the violence of this book. You feel overwhelmed by the force that keeps everything from working right in Mumbai and the sheer violence is so awful. One of the guys at work whose family lives in Mumbai fortunately said it is much better now. The underworld has imploded and computerization has made it more difficult to go around randomly killing people. What I like about this book is that it seems authentic and teeming with people. I do find the corruption, the lack of effective judicial systems and infrastructure disturbing. It is hard to reconcile the level of education that part of the population achieves with the lawlessness and low value that many place on life.