This book was written around the same time as Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games. Both Suketu Mehta and Vikram Chandra were travelling and researching their respective books together at the same time, often talking to and interviewing the people together.

The parallels are easy to spot if you've read both books. They're great companion pieces to each other. Mehta's book is rich in detail and insight. It slips easily into paths untrodden and undiscovered in writing before. However, Mehta's own privilege, foreign lens and national loyalties often come in the way. Yet, despite that, he is able to write sincerely about Kashmir and the 92 riots and the rise of Hindutva politics.

It's a great read for anyone fascinated by Bombay, its complex history and politics, its film industry, its underbelly and the gangsters and film stars who inhabit it. Traversing these worlds that make up Bombay, Mehta writes of the dreams, tragedies and contradictions that underpin life in this city.

With every individual that Mehta meets and the personal story that comes out, the multiple threads that form the nexus between corruption and power, films and underworld, religion and politics become clear. There isn't one unifying thread connecting Bombay, but rather multiple threads, going in multiple directions, and forming multiples Bombays, and thus emerges the aptly chosen title - Maximum City.

Maximum City @ The Review Cafe

If you are fas­ci­nated with Mum­bai (just as I am) and you need to dive right into this vibrant city, look no fur­ther. Suketu Mehta takes us on a whirl­wind tour of the city from his early days as a school going kid to the time when he comes back from US to write his book.
He takes us through the lives of dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters which are totally dif­fer­ent from each other. Just to give you an exam­ple, he meets a suc­cess­ful film direc­tor, an under­world don, a doomed bar dancer, a cross dress­ing male who leads a dou­ble life and many more. He also intro­duces us to a few Bol­ly­wood per­son­al­i­ties too. His writ­ing style is such that he blurs the line between fic­tion and non-fiction and you don’t even real­ize it. I know that peo­ple usu­ally find fic­tion a bit bor­ing, but this is as good as it gets and it is no less than a thriller, with every page hav­ing some sur­prise in store.
This book is not your typ­i­cal “travel guide”, it has been very well researched and the selec­tion of char­ac­ters is even bet­ter. I am amazed that the author got these peo­ple to agree to give a con­sid­er­ate chunk of their time to him. The only thing I did not like about the book was that Mehta did not know where to stop and that the chap­ters were a bit too long. He delves too much into his char­ac­ters that you start to lose track at some point. Other than that, the book kept me glued through it’s 500+ pages. My favourite sec­tion was Mehta’s time with an exotic bar dancer Monalisa...

For the complete review, you can visint my blog at
Maximum City @ The Review Cafe

Take all the travel memoirs, travelogues and any book written on cities all around the world and try to rate them from top to bottom. Guess which book will be at the top? This one. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Bombay/Bambai/Mumbai is a city where I have spent some of the indispensably important years of my life and it is a city of many firsts for me. Surprisingly, this city not being my native home, or where I live currently, is the closest to what I think of as home. The author managed to move me by writing about Bombay in such a redolent style that made me cry, laugh, surprised and just feel nostalgic all at the same time.

Suketu Mehta travels far and wide across the city meeting politicians, police officers, underworld dons, film stars, bar dancers, prostitutes, slum dwellers and any sample point that could help him map out the physical, emotional, political, moral, economical, cultural or ethical space of Mumbai. As Business Standard has already pointed out on the back-cover of the book -

"Maximum City is billed as non-fiction, but has the intensity and vividness of fiction.."

the author has such a keen eye and intimacy with the thoughts, feelings and intentions of the person he is talking to that you cannot help but follow the life of the interviewee (be it a bar dancer or a mafia) with such acuteness that you cannot wait to reach the end.

I read this book almost after 14 years of its publication, and still it felt so garden-fresh and crisp. This book is going to forever be an indelible classic tale of Bombay for years to come.

Towards the end of the book, there was this one line which summarizes Bombay quite aptly-

n  n    The reason a human being can live in a Bombay slum and not lose his sanity is that his dream life is bigger than his squalid quarters. n  n

The author returns to Mumbai (the city he calls home after travelling to quite a number of cities) and tries to look for the city he left 21 years ago. He goes on a quest to find a city of his youth by meeting different people with offbeat lives. From gangsters to call girls to dreamers to Jain monks, this book narrates many peculiar lives inhabiting Mumbai.
I would recommend this book as it is well written, well researched and eccentric. But, I find it necessary to add that I have never lived in Mumbai. Mumbai is a vast city and everyone living there has their own interpretation of it and some might not agree with the author's perception. Since i haven't lived there, after this book, Mumbai seems like a beguiling and fascinating city.
The author has worked on this book for about two and a half years and has obtained first person accounts from politicians, policemen, gangsters, aspiring actors and poets. My favourite story would be that of the poet Babbanji who has left his home to make his dream come true. He lives on the streets of Mumbai and writes about his street life.it is the most heart warming one.

Finally finished this 500+ page magisterial work on India's largest city, Mumbai to most, but still Bombay to Suketu Mehta, who was raised in the city and now lives in New York. This *is* Bombay, in all its beautiful, frustrating, dazzling, harrowing, filthy, dizzying glory. As Mehta tells it--and how brilliantly does he tell it!--this is a city of extremes: extreme wealth and extreme poverty, extreme vice and extreme religiosity; oftentimes the two coexisting side by side. This is a city where (as we have recently seen) communal violence is not uncommon, but it is also a city where Hindus worship at the tombs of Sufi saints, and Muslims invoke the protection and patronage of Hindu gods. It is a city of corruption, pollution, poverty; but also of immodest dreams, unfounded optimism, and that most slippery of commodities, hope.

Most of all this is a city of people, who also live lives of extremes yet are believable in every way: mafia dons and filmi stars and billionaire diamond merchants; slum-dwelling thugs and cross-dressing nightclub dancers and sidewalk-sleeping teenage poets. Mehta casts far and wide in this metropolis of tens of millions and comes up with some of the most remarkable characters I have met in literature, fiction and non-, for a very long time, and tells their stories with awesome skill and verve. As a Bombayite might declare, Maximum City is Maximum Book.

A hairdresser I had once was from Bombay and recommended this book to me. I remember being so fascinated with the city- it was certainly an eye opener. Big City problems persist around the world, but it seems each city has its own flavors and issues. Phew! I liked this book, even without any background knowledge.

I can't say I've ever had a strong desire to move to Bombay, but this book was convincing enough that I safely believe it not the place for me. But, there's a certain subconscious, almost sadomasochistic draw to the place - as if moving there would be a particularly creative form of (potentially physical) suicide to the person I am today. Like Los Angeles - only 10 times stronger.

I came to this book via Mehta's interview in the Believer. He seemed a funny, smart guy and I figured his book would be the same. And it is. But the book is more about going back to places your once knew and trying to understand them again.

Mehta doesn't spend a lot of time on 9-to-5-vers in Mumbai. (maybe there's less of them) This book is more a tour of the groups that seem to define the city. From gangsters to their mirror twins, cops, and onward to their distillations - Bollywood stars. Along the way he visits a variety of other folks, but mostly tries to understand where Bombay is today and how it has moved from the city he remembers. A lot of the characters are held together through various connections to the 1993 riots and bombings. All this is interspersed with his own trials trying to carve out a life for his family over two and a half years.

The writing is sharp, at times funny and insightful. He doesn't rationalize his interview subjects, but lets them speak their mind at length, which can be quite interesting, especially with the hitmen.

This book does presuppose some level of knowledge about India, especially Bollywood. I had to spend some extra time trying to piece together the importance of the references. But altogether a good read.

Circa 1992. It was a regular school day on a lovely December morning(winters are warm not cold in Bombay).With just an hour left to mid-morning recess, there was a sudden flurry of anxious announcements calling certain students to report immediately with their belongings at the Principal’s office. After being little nosy about the happenings I go back to my daydreaming. Suddenly, I see my mother hurriedly demanding that I go and collect my younger sister from her classroom. As I walk through the school compound frantic parents rush in and out of the school premises with their children. As we walk towards the car I see my father tensed and horrified to some extent. He had just escaped death(which we knew later that evening. Four men had hurled bombs in front of him at a nearby housing development while my father was driving through traffic). A riot had broken in the streets nearby as we frantically rushed home, I could see shutters closing at the speed of light, people scattering, some flinging acid bulbs and destruction of harmless developments. That was the day the Hindu-Muslim riots let a demon loose for which innocents had to pay with their humble lives in the coming horrendous months. I still remember those days vividly for I have been a front row spectator to the bloodshed occurred in the name of religion ignited by few political rivals. I lived among trepidations that lasted for years to come by. Lost people I knew and religion once again became a crucial factor in our mundane lives. The citizens of Bombay (I resist from calling it Mumbai, always) bravely faced those murky days, which I witnessed closely with resilience and banishing all prejudices imposed by political cults. Over decades the city has seen its share of political violence and inter-religion hatred, but its people have always made it through with smiling faces.

Thus, when an individual who summons his exploration of a nostalgic hometown proclaiming that he has seen enough murderers and questioned their virtues, it irks me.I am not denying factual comprehensions of this book, as it would be utterly preposterous to overlook the shame that Bombay once faced or has not being able to strike an equilibrium in honored survival, however I do question the validity of his sentiments to a place he calls “Maximum City” where he once unreservedly wandered as a kid. Mehta says he left the city in 1977 only to be back after 21years to find him in a state of utter shock. There is no falsehood, no dramatic sequences to define the underbelly of my home city, nevertheless I get annoyed each time I open the pages and read those words. Rarely a book touches me on a personal note, but these words dishearten me as they are negative of a place and its people who strive hard for a living. Fair enough, there are vast discrepancies in the standard of living. There are some who die homeless in scorching heat whereas others never travel without an air-conditioned comfort. There are some who demand beluga caviar on toast for tea –time and indulge in La Prairie Cellular serums while others barely make it through the day without a proper meal. It is extremely difficult to rationalize these disparities that hit you in the face in the most mysterious ways. But, these do not define all. Why wasn’t there a prose about people striving everyday braving obstacles with dignified audacity to make a better living. About individuals determined to make a dignified and prosperous future come what may. People amalgamating into one joyous mass rejoicing each cultural festival with the same magnanimous excitement banishing all ethnic prejudices.

The chapters on “Bollywood” signify braggart purposes. It is a film industry for crying out loud; an entertainment business where almost all actors are purely performers and not artistic geniuses that venerates the true meaning of art. Nothing can be gained from it rather that a minority percentage of artistes that depart frothy amusement to make assiduous lives cheerful. Most art films (movies depicting social causes and instabilities) do not fare well with common psyche. This very attitude shows the annoyance of a mind resisting it to shun “moralistic virtues” performed by artistes that have been rehearsed to achieve precision. Is it disheartening? Not really. When it comes to choosing authenticity over illusionary realism, the latter is always preferred.

One would refute my caustic words claiming that with my privileged lifestyle I must be the last person to comment on the imbalanced financial and educational status of this city. I have never lived without food, shelter or money. Then how would I know the depth of a suffering. One does not have to be poor to know what poverty is. One does not have to be fraudulent to know what corruption is. I was born in Bombay, schooled here and I presently live in this city all hale and hearty. Unlike the author, I have been away from Bombay for a span of 9 years, while I was studying in the US. But, that does not give me the right to condemn the city mechanics or garner negativity. As you cannot expect a child to stay a child forever, you cannot anticipate a burgeoning city to stay in its purest unscathed form. From what I observed, the author seems perplexed with his distinctiveness. He tried finding a sense of belonging in New York stressed through the binding stereotypes only to come back to the place of his origin and see it modified into a strange land that once again botched a sense of belonging.

Bombay will always be my home come what may. I have traveled around many superior worldly cities, yet the imminent landing announcement at the Bombay airport somehow makes me warmly smile every freaking time. The city is heavily crowded, poverty and richness juxtaposes every road that spirals into politically corrupt governing display of unreliable loyalties and prone to religious debates. But, this does not define its landscapes, its populace. It is a city where dreams are built; life is raw imparting valuable teachings of resilient determination, where people smile even in the most tedious times, ethnicities are celebrated with joyfulness and life is seen at it nastiest and its finest. It is a place where I grew up and took long walks with my grandfather relishing every aspect of this marvelous city. Bombay is not a place full of murderers or politically agitated goons, it is haven of magnificent, soulful people who fight all odds and nurture a ravishing tomorrow. Now, this is what I would term as “Maximum City”.

Lastly, one question that troubles me is why only those who bring together pessimistic opinions are the ones who have stayed away from the core of Bombay nudging stereotypes in a foreign land?

Praj, why after such scathing opinion would you bestow a 3-star rating on this book? Is this you being diplomatic or commiserating the author’s hard slog? Ah, I get it. This book makes you defensive about your home city and makes you affectionate for something you disregarded that this book interleaves in you.

In spite of this book being lavished with positive reviews both in the press and here on Goodreads, I found it incredibly boring. I leap-frogged my way through it, skipping chunky tracts as I skimmed its 600 or so pages. The bits that interested me discussed the infrastructure and practical problems of the city of Mumbai, which is massively over-populated, has substantial slums, and has some bizarre laws regarding accommodation. The bits that bored me were the long journalistic reports of the author's interactions with racist politicians, figures of the underworld, workers in dance bars, Bollywood writers, people from slums - plus a long, drawn-out story about a relative who was in the process of becoming a Jain monk. Generally I love stories about people - but these stories just dragged and dragged and dragged. I found them absolutely e-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g.

One odd point of interest was that whilst this book swam around in the underbelly of Mumbai life, I was also being exposed to the ultimate in Mumbai luxury. Whilst reading the book I also happened to be watching a three-part television series about The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. A bastion of exquisite perfection in an imperfect world. It was weird shifting between the top and bottom extremes of Mumbai life, with nothing in between, no discussion of ordinary people doing ordinary jobs and living ordinary lives. I presume they must be in there somewhere.

I have taken the longest time to finish a book. Not because it wasn't interesting, because the book was long and had so many details to consume. It has close to 500 pages in the tiniest of the font, but how much research has gone into this brilliant book.

The book starts on a cynical note with his personal experience of relocating to the city where he was born and lived for a while. But once he starts narrating the lives of the various people he has met over the course of 2yrs, it really keeps us engaged.

He travels with the people who were affected by the riots, the underworld, the party leaders, the wannabe leaders, the Policeman who played a key role, few dons, few film makers, the night life that Bombay or rather Mumbai has to offer, the bar dancers, so so many of them. Everyone has a story, a perspective to offer. There are no big secrets he reveals but some lives are really fascinating and some justifications even more so.

Having lived in a Mumbai that was very peaceful, that hardly witnessed any riots or bombings *touchwood*, I really have more fascination towards the city now. How so many of them have double lives, how they survive. I'd recommend it if you are a lover of cities, if you are willing to take some cynicism, and understand that at times reality can be more dramatic that fiction.

The more I read into the book, the more I wanted to visit Mumbai again. For nostalgia, for the good memories, for the people, for the convenience that this Metro is.

The book reminds me of Shantaram. They are similar, in a way they are telling the story of a Mumbai, but also different not only in style and language but also perspective.

Well, Shantaram is a fiction and Maximum City is not. The words are graphic, I usually avoid that kind of narrative. This time, I can’t. I am captivated by Suketa’s narrative and drawn to the fabric of the city.

I like it, a lot.

Maximum city - suketh mehta

ಸರಿಸುಮಾರು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ವರ್ಷಗಳಷ್ಟು ಹಳೆಯ ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಈಗ ಓದುವಾಗ ಎಷ್ಟೊಂದು ವಿಷಯಗಳು ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ .

ಮೊದಲನೆಯದಾಗಿ ಧನಾತ್ಮಕ ಅಂಶಗಳು
- ಅದ್ಭುತ ಗದ್ಯ. ಮೊದಲ ಪುಟದಿಂದಲೇ ಸರಕ್ಕನೆ ಒಳಗೆಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಶಕ್ತಿ.
- ಮುಂಬಯಿಯ ಜೀವನವ ರಾಜಕೀಯದ ಕೋನದಿಂದ, ಅಪರಾಧ ಜಗತ್ತಿನ ‌ಭಾಗದಿಂದ ನೋಡಿದ ರೀತಿ. ಅಲ್ಲಲ್ಲಿ 'ಶಾಂತರಾಮ್' ನೆನಪಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಬೈಕುಲ್ಲಾ ಟೂ ಬ್ಯಾಂಕಾಕ್ ಢಾಳಾಗಿ ಕಾಣಿಸುತ್ತದೆ.

ನಕರಾತ್ಮಕ ಅಂಶಗಳು
- ಸಿನಿಮಾಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಣುವ ಹೀರೋನ ಆಪತ್ತಿಗೆ ಬರುವ ಒಬ್ಬ ಸಹಕಲಾವಿದ ಕಡ್ಡಾಯವಾಗಿ ಬಿಳಿಯ ಟೊಪ್ಪಿ ಧರಿಸುವ ನಿಯಮ ಇದೆಯಲ್ಲ ಅದು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಪುಟ ಪುಟಕ್ಕೂ ಕಾಣಸಿಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಪಾಪ, ಅವರು ಎಷ್ಟು ಶೋಷಿತರು ಎಂದು ವಿದೇಶಿ ಹೇಳಬಹುವಷ್ಟು‌.

- ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿರುವುದು ಲೇಖಕನ ಅನುಭವ ಶ್ರೀಮಂತ ವರ್ಗದ ಅನುಭವ. ಮನೆಗೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಕೆಲಸದವರ ಹುಡುಕುವ ಪಾಡು ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ. ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಒಂದೇ ಆಕಾಶ ಆದ ಕಾರಣ ಅವರ ನೋವುಗಳೂ ನಮ್ಮದಾಗಿ ಕಾಣುತ್ತದೆ.

ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕದ ಸುದೀರ್ಘವಾದ ಅಧ್ಯಾಯಗಳು ಬಾಂಬೆಯ ಭೂಗತ ಜಗತ್ತನ್ನು ಕವರ್ ಮಾಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಅದು ನಮಗೆ ಹೊಸತಲ್ಲ. ರವಿ ಬೆಳಗೆರೆ,ಹುಸೇನ್ ಜೈದಿ ಕಟ್ಟಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟದ್ದೇ.

ಅದಲ್ಲದೆ ' ಮಿಷನ್ ಕಾಶ್ಮೀರ್' ಎಂಬ ಸಿನಿಮಾ ಆದ ಬಗೆ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ.
ಈ ಅಧ್ಯಾಯ ಸಿನಿ ಆಸಕ್ತರ�� ಓದಲೇಬೇಕಾದದ್ದು.
ಒಂದು ಸಿನಿಮಾ ಹೇಗೆ ‌ನಿರ್ಮಾಣಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂಬುದರಿಂದ ಹಿಡಿದು ನಟರ ತಾಪತ್ರಯಗಳು ಒಂದು ಕೋಮಿಗೆ ಬೇಸರವಾಗದಂತೆ ಹೂಡುವ ನಾಟಕಗಳು ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ನವರಂಗಿ ಆಟ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ವಿವರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ.

ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಪುಲಿಟ್ಜೆರ್ ಪ್ರಶಸ್ತಿಯ ಫೈನಲಿಸ್ಟ್ ಆಗಿತ್ತು.
ಬಹುಶಃ ಭಾರತವ ಬೈದದ್ದು ಸಾಕಾಗದ್ದಕ್ಕೋ ಏನೋ ಇದು ಗೆಲ್ಲಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಇದರ ಗದ್ಯ ಬಹಳ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದೆ. ಖಾಸಗಿ ಅನುಭವಗಳ ಕುರಿತು ಬರೆಯುವಾಗ ಮೆಹ್ತಾ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಾರೆ.