3.5 stars. There are a few bits of pure genius in here but on the whole it’s quite dragging. Could have conveyed the same message with around 150 or so pages less.

3.5 stars

Wish this had 200+ pages less. Because when it follows a certain track to tell the story of, it goes on and on. Prolonged musings on a single track gets boring after a certain point. Especially the underworld/crime chapters rule this book. Almost half of the book is this, which I wasn't expecting. I picked this book to read about the city, it's melancholy, it's colors. But since the start the author is in a different mood. Just like an average Western portrayal, it paints only negative picture, which goes too much overboard in initial chapters.

However, later we get a really engrossing peek into the life of criminals. Similarly the glittering world of bars and films and a few personal lives, makes an interesting read. My favourite is the track of the poet. Beautiful throughout. So is the chapter on Bollywood, love it for obvious reasons. The chapter on Jainism is just out of place. Has nothing to do with the city yet at the climax of the book, pages are wasted.

Would have loved this more if it had more history, and became of the city. Perhaps that's why, I love fiction more, over non fiction, written about the city.

This book- Wowza! The setting was Bombay now Mumbai, and takes place after the riots in 1993! it’s a place I would not care to visit unless there’s been some drastic changes! It’s on the sea, but people that live there seldom if ever go to the ocean because it’s so filthy. Their living conditions, transportation, really corrupt police officers,the gangs and lack of water - I could go on and on. You have to bribe everyone to get anything done.
It’s my perspective though because I don’t live there! I’m privileged. I turn on the faucet, and out comes drinkable water. I don’t live above a sewer! They grow spinach out of the sewer The region has a very high rate of illiteracy so many poor people!
The author interviewed Indians that got out of the slums, yet missed their people/community. A beautiful dancer whom the author spent time with said she would never leave.
Anyway I learned so much about this complex region of India. The author went on to long!

This was a fascinating book. After years in America, Suketu Mehta returned to his childhood home in Bombay/Mumbai with his wife and young children. His odyssey through the city, meeting people everywhere from the political scene and organized crime to exotic dancers, is a love letter of sorts, though one that doesn't flinch from the more troubling aspects of life there. Mehta is at once an insider and an outsider, which gives him a unique perspective on Mumbai, its population, and some of the issues they face.

I just skimmed through its pages. There were too many informations given. Only after reaching half way did i realize it's a non fiction. The book is a good read if you want to know about Bombay, politicians, gundas, Lafdas, terrorists and about riots. What I felt was more emphasis is given on these matters rather than focusing on Bombay as a whole. Bombay is unique than most of the cities in India. These riots and gang wars are not what Bombay is made of. But of those millions of people who are fighting for a days wages, and their happiness that's what Bombay is made of. It is a city that has a life.

It is considered a great book by many on Bombay – now Mumbai. The writer shows us what makes this city unique and different from other big cities in India. He goes on to give very detailed information on how the city operates. It is the mafia, slums, Bollywood, corruption that makes the city a 'Maximum City.' There are certain sections of the book that I enjoyed reading. When this book was written, there were powerful politicians who ruled the city. One name that immediately comes to mind is that of Bal Thackeray. Mehta's meeting with him, as it was described in the book, is an interesting one. Even though Bala Saab was an extreme right, pro-Hindu politician and journalist, he did not know where his house was located in Bombay. He did not know the geography of the city. This is scary to know in the sense that people who become so powerful and have the destiny of millions in their hands could be so monumentally ignorant. Another fascinating trope in the book is where the author talks about mafia and slums. Almost everyone in Mumbai, especially the privileged, is marred by the presence of mafia– in direct and indirect ways. Half of the book is the study of mafia and its connection with Bollywood. For instance, he writes about 'Bombay Blasts' of 1993 and the well-known actor Sanjay Dutt's involvement in it. The book, in very conspicuous ways, tells us how class, caste, and even the knowledge of the English language help one to survive the city. Of course, one knows this because this true for most other Indian cities too. However, it is the underworld that put Bombay in another zone. Also, Unlike other urban centers in India, Bombay is the business center. It is the work that matters here and not the protocols. But unfortunately, bureaucracy works here in the same ways as it does in other parts of India; it crushes the poor and works only for the tiny few. One must add that the city also has some pluses such as it is safe for the women. So many societal rules and traditions that are stringently followed in the rest of the country are less in vogue in Bombay. However, the city has its own problems, its own character that makes it at once enticing and diabolic. One notices this binary. Perhaps, it is the diabolic features of Bombay that appeal to Mehta. There are books that you read, and you love them, and then you write reviews. There are other books that you read with effort, and then write reviews with even greater effort. I guess for me this book is too big and in parts, it becomes boring, very boring. I wonder how come so many people claim this book to be the greatest book ever written Bombay – now, Mumbai. For instance, I find such claims rather absurd because at least I know of one other author – Manto – who wrote brilliantly on Bombay. Unlike Mehta, Manto wrote on the city as one of its members. Mehta's gaze on the city is that of a disinterested (western) anthropologist on his own city. At times this is a plus, and sometimes it reeks of snobbery and self-hatred

Dealing with this book has been a very difficult task for me ! I found it extremely hard to read and scary. Does it have a difficult language? Oh no..not at all. It is the scenes that sends a shudder down your spine. They are the ones ..so boorish, very crude, goosebumpishly raw! I remember having a similar feeling while reading about the plight of women in Kabul. But, this book is based on the city I was born and lived most of my life in and most of it parallel with my formative years. Needless to say, but nothing in this book will make me change the way I feel about Mumbai, I still very dearly love the city and given a choice would love to be settled here.

Nevertheless, in hindsight, an interesting read, an "open-your-eyes-wide" with an "Oh" and a "seriously???" every second paragraph or so, a heartwarming insight into the city at some points and a gripping narrative ( though requires a few breaks to digest the overwhelming facts about power,infidelity, torture, convalescence of the "just" & the "wronger" & the "affluent" & the "destitute").

Is there a point where crime and corruption intersect with out of control population growth and result in a total breakdown of municipal services? If there is, India is the first place it is going to happen. This book shows a city that appears to be teetering on the brink of implosion and yet, somehow, life goes on, a testament to the patience and resilience of its people.

Surely there are parts of Mumbai where ordinary middle class people go about their ordinary middle class lives, but the city, for those people, is not altogether different from New York or Berlin or Tokyo. In other words, there is not a lot for a reader to learn about people who live lives that are recognizably like one’s own. It is in the differences that the character and color of the city emerge, and Mumbai certainly has those, so that is where the author places his focus.

For starters, corruption isn’t just an annoying occasional problem. In India it is how things get done, from the lowliest workers to the tradesmen to the business owners, bureaucrats, doctors and judges, to the very highest levels of government. I would not be surprised in the least if I were to read that the Prime Minister, like Vladimir Putin, has billions stashed away in secret accounts. It has become a fixed fact of life in India; everyone complains about it, but ordinary people can’t stop it, and the ones who could stop it have no interest in doing so because they themselves are profiting from it.

I once saw a policeman in Newport, Rhode Island rough up a drunk when he thought no one was watching, and I was aghast. When I said something, he gave me a look of malice and contempt that seemed to say, “You want to be next?”, but he dropped the man and sauntered off. That was bad, but it was not India bad. It was not like Newport cops were just another street gang, robbing, raping and murdering at will, and then facing no repercussions simply by saying they had engaged bandits. It is no wonder that average citizens have no faith in them.

And then there is the poverty, beyond anything we see in the United States. I was in Mississippi once and was taken aback by how bad rural poverty could be, as in decrepit shack, no electricity, no indoor plumbing poverty. Later I was in Port-au-Prince, and saw how much worse third world poverty can be. That was the image I had in my mind when the author described life for many, perhaps most, of Mumbai’s residents, and it was grotesque: filthy, disease-ridden, vermin infested, hungry and hopeless. It was like looking at a preview of civilization’s fall.

Through it all, people survive, and some flourish. The book has interviews with business and restaurant owners and their employees, as well as dive bars and the men and women there who entertain customers (perhaps I should say “entertain”). They have found a way to survive, and that alone is an impressive achievement. Despite all the difficulties they face in their daily lives, they are survivors.

India’s problems seem overwhelming, and it is hard to imagine that the government, even if it shows a newfound willingness to do so, will ever get ahead of the situation. Relentless population growth and corruption will be exacerbated by global warming, sea level rise, antibiotic resistance, and all the other terrors the twenty-first century will face. It doesn’t look promising, but if anyone can find a way to adjust and survive, it will be the Indians.

Rambling mess of a book, bordering on self indulgent. I did appreciate that the author mentioned the various layers of the city. However, so many parts of the book were simply unreadable, especially the way he spoke (and fantasised over) women.

I don't know how he did it, but he managed to completely creep me out as a reader. It's been a while since I've read something that's made me question the ethics/mental health of the author so profoundly, particularly when writing across class/gender/sexuality. There was one spectacularly sick-and-twisted line in the chapter about Monalisa that immediately made me put down the book and never open it again. And I made a promise to myself to stop connecting to the lives of other women through the literary voices of seedy ass men.

Well researched and well written. But it's not a book about Bombay. It's an OUTSIDER'S view of Bombay. A person who is grossly unaware about the city culture that he tries to build stereotypes. Highly Pessimistic and a cynical viewpoint has been presented.
I feel pity for the author, who in the city of dreams which is full of life and hope couldn't find something to rejoice about it.

All in all, well researched, informative but fails to achieve the difficult task of capturing Bombay's zeal.

Extraordinary. Just extraordinary. Enough has been written and said about this book, there's no need for me to add any more. But I'll yet say this: Bombay really did deserve a book of this sweep and magnitude, and it needed a writer like Mehta, who was willing to go deep into the heart of this 'great, ruined metropolis'.

Just one gripe: I hope the next reprint of Maximum City is better produced than Penguin's woeful India paperback edition, which I read. This book deserves better, with perhaps a new foreword from the writer? That would be something I'd pay top dollar for.