As someone who grew up in Bombay (yes, I left about 7 years ago, so I'm still able to resist calling it Mumbai) I should say that I did not identify with everything in this book, but the essence of it appealed to me, I think. While I felt that the book looked at the city with (what seemed intentionally) a foreign eye, I would say to its credit that this did not hinder my ability to identify with the book, as much as my own ignorance of the many layers of Bombay, growing up as a kid.
I've always felt that children in urban Bombay (the ones with food in their mouths and roofs over their heads) are staunchly protected from the realities of urban life. In stark comparison with my other cousins growing up in other metros, I was always the innocent one, unaware of the kinds of things about adult life that you might wonder how teenagers and adolescents end up getting wind of. Now that I think about it, it might even be a defense mechanism for parents in the city to bring up their children in the microcosms that they think they deserve.
So yes, in many ways, this book was a learning experience. After all, irrespective of how unhealthy it might prove to be, if you lay your claim over a city like us Bombayites (or Mumbaikars, if you're not old school like me) do, you would want to know all the gory details about everything that happens there, wouldn't you?

An honest bleak description of the biggest metropolitan city in India.

Suketu Mehta, an NRI (non-residential Indian) who moved to US in early teens, lays out an accurate, humane and shocking description of Land of Dream - Mumbai.

The book aptly opens with the description of shocks experienced by someone from a developed nation visiting a developing nation. After some acclimatization, the author takes us through the fascinating life of the true Mumbaikars - immigrants, hindus, muslims, marathi manus, filmstars, gangsters, cops, merchants and monks.

Those sheltered from the harsh reality of developing nations would find the book shocking. It will make you wonder about the bubble you have been living in. What shocked me more than the stories was the ability of the author to make friends and converse with people as disparate as film-stars and assassins.

The only gripe I have with the author is the title. I mean I get it - Mumbai is a city that the author lost in childhood and one that he found when he returned as an adult. We do see the city through author's eyes. So, it suits him. But the book isn't and cannot be about him, it is the story of Mumbaikars. I would have much preferred the title given by one of his subjects (a Bihari immigrant poet) - Untold Life.

Furthermore, it is a book that describes a lost city. While the last few pages do their best to paint a pretty picture of the city, it comes across as nothing but lip service.

If you come from a developing nation or have any ties to one. This is a must read.

Ever since I heard about this book, I have been wanting to read it. On various occasions I did come across it, picked it up, browsed through it, liked it, yet never bought it! Until finally 14 days ago, I entered the book shop to buy something entirely different and ended up walking out with Maximum City- a book about Bombay: a city I was born into and of course, a book about Mumbai: a city I grew up in!!

As I began ravenously reading it, I cursed myself for not procuring it all these years. A horrendous transgression on my part for 2 reasons, one- Because it is indeed a scintillating book about the city to whom I belong and hence I should not have deprived myself of it for so long; and two- The Book came out 8 years ago. For a vivacious city like Bombay, 8 years is more than enough time for any such documentation to seem archaic!

Albiet, the book still makes for a compelling read. The language is lucid and subject riveting. The humor and irony throughout is so well articulated that you cannot help but laugh or smile time and again.

On multiple occasions, I was floored by Mehta's keen observation, identifying thoroughly and amused by his attention to detail.

My favorite amongst many such being one where Mehta writes about how while standing in any queue in Bombay, when your turn comes up at the counter window, the person after you will invariably come up and stand beside you as if he is accompanying you!

In such works of non-fiction a writer needs to state his opinion every now and then on all that he observes and experiences. At every such occasion I only got more drawn to the author as Mehta's acumen was so refreshingly insightful without being overtly erudite.
For instance after stating the traffic voes and the lack of town planning in the city he candidly states- “The wars of the 21st century will be fought over parking spaces!”

At another instance as he observes Bombay's various struggles and confusions, he concludes- “Bombay is an imitation of a western city- may be Chicago in the 1920's and like all other imitations of the west that persist here- it is neither here nor there!!”

Now, for a city like Bombay where 'profession' is mostly the basis for differentiation, it would not be an exaggeration to accept that Mehta has traversed all its kind. Through his escapades, he makes us a part of various lives and minds that shape and color this city into what it is.

Through the book- We meet the underworld shooters whose psyche although alien to us, is so clear and uncomplicated. We meet the bar dancer who so often may appear a dumb blond swirling to the beats, but who's maturity and understanding of life may leave us feeling timid. Then of course there is Bollywood- the propriety of Bombay- where Mehta takes us into the house of- the now even more famous- filmmaker, Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Through Chopra we even enter the shrine of matinee lord - Amitabh Bachchan- where we are party to some of his closed door reactions. We even get to imagine- as part of a true account- the King Khan, Shah Rukh Khan making tea in Vidhu Chopra's kitchen!!

However, along with this glitter of sprawling dance bars and Bollywood razzmatazz, Mehta also sufficiently unfolds the lives of the all important Bihari migrant and explores his dreams for us. We are also narrated- vividly- the life of an ever struggling middle class local boy and his families aspirations of moving from the hutments in Jogeshwari to a flat in Mira Road to a flat in Vile Parle and so on and so forth!

Mehta also hobnobs and spends quality time with a senior cop who elaborates- with a wisdom only a cop can have- on the theater of riots that redefined Mumbai in 1993 and the vengeance that erupted in the form of the bomb blasts thereafter. Through the cops' innuendoes we feel the murky girth that our beloved city possesses. If these anonymous personalities that make most of the Bombay were not enough, Mehta also gets an audience with Bal Thackeray and manages a phone call with Chotta Shakeel!! Phew!

Finally, to conclude Mehta takes us- as if to cleanse his own self- to a billionaire diamond merchant and his family who are renouncing all their wealth and luxuries to become jain monks!! Giving up everything from their Rolls Royce to the sprawling Pedder road apartment to live a life of sacrifice and devotion! Basically after possessing the city, they are now giving her up!!

The only flaw that this book suffers from ironically is similar to the very city the book unveils. That of- “Plenty”!
Just as the city suffers from 'too much' of people, anxiety, corruption, ambition... Suketu Mehta's Maximum City suffers from a 100 pages too many! Mehta seems to get besotted with his characters. So much so as to not let them go. Had these 100 pages of banal narrative been clipped, the book would have resembled more closely the Bombay of our dreams. Presently it is the Bombay we live in...although lovable and addictive, also exhaustive!!!

This book was a mixed bag for me. There is some great narrative in Mehta's tale of his return to the city of his youth as an adult. His description of learning how to navigate the corrupt bureaucracy in order to get enough cooking gas for his new flat was priceless. But as he begins to delve more deeply into explorations of politics, organized crime and the sex trade, particularly his growing friendship with a bar girl, the narrative outlasted my interest. I really enjoyed certain sections of this book, but it was uneven and I found myself skimming the last third.

One the best biographies about Bombay...or what is now known as mumbai. Mehta takes you to see the real Mumbai, with hidden lanes and masked people, waiting to explode at the slightest provokation and yet holding immense peace and tolerence within itself. This alternate view of Mumbai may seem harsh or even unreal, but probably its real...thats why the city maxes with everything.

Update: on second read,feelings remain the same.

" The effect of the mass migrations has been the creation of radically new types of human beings- people who root themselves in memories as much as in material things, people who have been obliged to define themselves- because they are so defined by others- by their otherness; people in whose deepest selves strange fusions occur, unprecedented union between what they are and where they find themselves. To see things plainly you have to cross a frontier." -Salman Rushdie, The location of Brazil

Suketu Mehta moved from Mumbai to New York at a young age. He was old enough thiugh to have strong enough that provides one with memories and emotions of longing and belonging to a place and time from which one has been forcibly removed. Born in a Gujrati family who eventually make Bombay their home base, Mehta has the good fortune of being paid to return to the home he left behind, years later, as an adult writer, an expatriate Indian to re-introduce Bombay as Mumbai to a world that may not particularly be aware of the sea of emotions a migrant carries within themselves all day every day.

Given the interesting perspective the book promised, I was slightly disappointed with this book. I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking the book is poorly written. On the contrary, it is wonderfully worded by its author, full of detailed descriptions of nearly everything he comes across but never in a burdensome way and never in the vein of teaching an ignorant audience. This is perhaps the greatest quality of the book , the conversational quality with which Mehta writes about his subject.

I greatly enjoyed the re-integration process of Mehta who appears Indian in skin but is an American in mind and has to jump through the millions of loopholes to claim a habitat in Mumbai. In the ensuing process he dubs his beloved city, a city for which he only had sweet memories, The City of No, because all queries are met with the same negative utterance. It is comical, farcical and tragic all at the same time. He is not entirely without support- there are friends and family that help him along the way.

The book is divided into chapters and sub-chapters to fully divulge into famous facets of the city of dreams- politics, the Shiv Sena, Bollywood, Prostitution and dance clubs, Gangs and rival gangs et cetera. Mehta does a splendid job of spending ample time with many participants in each of these categories and getting to know their motives and intentions , visiting their homes and eating their food even attending weddings and campaigning for elections. From Bal Thakeray to Amitabh Bachchan to Chhota Salim , everyone makes an appearance in actual flesh, in this 500 page paperback.

And yet, as I mentioned earlier the book does not quite live up to what I imagined it would be when I had started reading it. The emotional connection is never strong enough, the writer remains somewhat distant from his subjects and I am never quite sure of the tone- melancholic or defensive or otherwise. Perhaps in an attempt to come across as objective he has removed himself too much and in the process the book suffers. The separate chapters also make the book non-linear and unnecessarily disjointed. In the end though I recommend everyone to read it for themselves because like the city described in this book, it is likely the content will have a multitude of effects on people of different background and I am certain most of it will be pleasant.

I'm vaguely obsessed with India, lately, and somehow stumbled across this book. It's a fascinating read - including personal anecdotes, fiction, history, present-day information - from a man who was born in India, moved to the United States as a young teen, and returned to India as an adult with his own family... It's everything you could possibly want, all under one cover. I plan to read this again.

This one was on my to-read list for a long time, mainly because it's the kind of book you feel will tell you once again what you've already heard a thousand times about Mumbai and India (contrasts, poverty, and so on) so I never felt a big urgency to read it. Well, and it did deliver a lot of just that, but thankfully also a lot of things that were new to me.

I did find it highly entertaining. As a foreigner who has been living in Mumbai for a total of 7 years by now it was kind of nice to recognize buildings, street names and areas, but also to get a glimpse into the Mumbai of 20 years ago. And this is a thing I think many readers who pick this book up now should try to keep in mind, it portrays certain niche parts of Mumbai society of 20 years ago. Granted, a lot of things didn't change all that much, but a whole lot certainly did. And again, it's very specific parts of Mumbai that the author shines a light on, that is organized crime, police corruption, prostitution, slums, the film industry and those trying to achieve in it, and Jain diamond merchants. So as you can tell, it is a bouquet of sensationalist topics that promise to sell well. No harm in that. Given the chance to gain access to these parts of Mumbai, i think no writer in their right mind wouldn't jump to gain material from that. Just be aware, it's about as representative of the everyday life of Mumbai as the movie The Wolf of Wallstreet is about New York.

The writer moved to the US as a teenager and returns for the purpose of researching for this book for a total of 2.5 years. Therefore it's also noteworthy to mention that his experiences and reflections are that of someone with a diaspora experience, and while he visually doesn't stand out as a foreigner, the way he reacts to certain things of everyday life are very reminiscent of any American who comes here for the first time. Of course knowing Gujarati and Hindi, having vivid childhood memories and family ties he has a better tap into the cultural backdrop, but you can tell throughout the first quarter of the book that he is suffering a kind of reverse culture shock, which seems to make his views on certain things partly a bit harsh or skewed. Nevertheless, a lot of his conclusions and observations do hold a lot of truth.

Sometimes I also wondered if he realizes that he possibly cannot take everyone he's talking to at their word. Many of the characters he interviews for sure added some flourish to their stories enjoying the unexpected attention of a writer. To the reader I would suggest to take some things with a good pinch of salt. I doubt it's an accident, that many of the interviewees stories line up with Bollywood scenes and sensationalist tabloid articles. For me personally the third of the book that is concerned with organized crime wasn't all that interesting. I cared more for the part that peeked behind the scenes of movie productions. The lives out of the dance-bar scene - a scene that is technically banned but certainly not completely gone now - were interesting as well. Generally Mehta has a great way of capturing those characters in a vivid manner.

A thing I didn't like all that much, funnily enough, was the writer's own character... or, well... let's say, I didn't find him very sympathetic. He's from an obviously wealthy Gujarati family of diamond merchants. He grew up in Malabar Hill, where he moved again after coming back to India, and later was surprised he found a nicer apartment in Bandra, which he remembers from his childhood as a mere suburb. To all non-Indian readers, today that's two of the most prime locations in town. He repeatedly kind of woefully describes how the Marathi people - the native people of that part of India - now have a larger political influence in the city than they used to in his childhood. When he was a kid the 'ghatis' as he calls them were only their maids and sweepers. He continues to claim they didn't have a legitimate claim to the city as it was brought to prosperity by mostly outsiders. Oh how it makes one think of old colonial narrations and voices from the British in the Subcontinent, who were just as condescending in their views of the local peoples and just as convinced that anything good in India really was due to their influence. That's a thing you'll frequently find among the Indian rich upper class. They seamlessly took over not only the influence and power but also the condescending self-righteous attitude of the departed colonial rulers.
Another minor thing that rubbed me a bit the wrong way is when he lets shine through his attitude towards the dancebar girl Monalisa. The claim that he didn't tell her about his wife and children for fear of having that piece of info get to anyone of the underworld just made me chuckle a bit. Sure, dude. Tell that to yourself. Besides the fact that if he really met the gang members he said he met he can be sure he was shadowed for weeks without knowing it and they knew very well about his wife and kids. The bigger slip-up comes when he picks up Monalisa to accompany her to a meeting with her father. He picks her up with a cab. Her current lover watches them shirtless from the window. He - as he says - "remembers and forgets" the fact that up until a few minutes ago she was still with "another man" and he is "probably still inside her". Like, dude... Chill. First of all, you didn't forget it or else it wouldn't be in your book. Secondly, what do you mean by "another man"? You are married with kids and supposedly not interested in her. She was with her man. What are you to her? And the "probably still inside her" bit... too much info... didn't need to know that. I wonder if he really unconsciously put that in to amp up a macho vibe around him or if he artificially added it in for masala (spice). I just didn't need it. It came off gross and creepy to me. But that doesn't mean his writing isn't good. There are many moment it shines, it really does, but that is mostly when he takes himself back and just tells about the actually interesting characters, which are aplenty in this book and make it a clear 4-star-read for me.

I do think it's a read-worthy book with fascinating characters that gives a view into a part of Mumbai that even normal people in Mumbai don't really ever get into contact with. It is not, however, a good representation of your average everyday people and life in Mumbai. It may be hard to believe for your average Western reader, but even in Mumbai most people have a mundane daily routine, that mostly involves work, getting your groceries and getting the next meal ready. Those are also people with their own dreams and stories, but they don't tend to attract the fancy of writers all that often. That's just how it is.

3.5/5 Shiv Sena, Police, Underworld, Bar dancers, Bollywood, a few portraits of the common men and some comments on life in the city. For a fat 600+ page book on a city, this was very limited in scope. I felt the lesser known Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began on Chennai was better structured and well-rounded but it felt a little short. Maximum City sits at the other extreme and I felt bored at times with the repetitive and excessive detailing of the lives of gangsters and bar dancers. Maybe because I have read Shantaram, Sacred Games and Zaidi's books, a few details about the topics in focus were already known to me.
The author was both an insider and an outsider and that gave him the perfect lens to view the city. He both understands and is baffled by the city and its people. I hate it when Indians try to kowtow to a Western audience (the best example being the Discovery of India by Nehru). While at times the author was guilty of this, mostly his frank and honest opinions made up for it. Reading about the 1992-1993 riots was illuminating.
Finally, while this may be the most well-known Indian travelogue that has inspired other writers, it is certainly not the best. I can also recall Capital: The Eruption of Delhi on Delhi which was better at a shorter length.

Another incredible book on Bombay (I think I need to move on to another city). More raw than Shantaram and a few parts sensationalized (in my opinion), but an amazing account of the many layers and faces of Bombay, that made me even more fascinated and in awe of how the metropolitan megalith manages to stay afloat. My favorite quote: "You can go home again, and you can also leave again. Once more, with confidence, into the world." (It spoke to me. :))

i thought this was a great book, describing a very complex city and history with both reportorial style and human interest angles. i have since heard it was maybe kind of skewed, but hell even if you did one apartment building it would probably be skewed, so i felt it was well worth my time. Some things that stick with me 6 years later are the crazy poor neighborhoods and the bathroom and fresh water problems, the rich people who give it all away and hit the road in their sandals, the tensions between hindu and moslem, rich and poor, the explosion of growth that seems it will never stop, the mafia, the food, the weather, the....

Mumbai is a fascinating city. i can not say that i ever liked it. too big, too chaotic but i felt drawn to understand it. Mehta give a lovely view of the interesting and intriguing stories of the city.