Thursday, December 09, 2004
Book Review :: Maximum city Bombay lost and found by Suketu Mehta
When I was a teen-ager growing up in a small sleepy town in UP, I had a romantic notion about bombay. Whenever Bombay's name used to come, there used to be a special smile on my face. During my engineering I chose bombay as the location for my summer training and immediately after completing my engineering I landed in bombay. After my initial struggle, which lasted for about 6 months I landed with a good job with accomodation from day one. Thus started my initial honeymoon with Bombay. I can describe my initial romantic affair with following verse
न जाने क्या बात है , बम्बई तेरे शबिस्तां में
कि हम शामे-अवध और सुबहे-बनारस छोड़ के चले आये
( I don't know what attracted me to your bed-chamber Bombay,
that I left the evening's of Awadh and the mornings of Benaras to come to you )
As I spent 3-4 years in bombay slowly my dream went sour and I started hating bombay for all that crowd , filth , pollution , human degradation , money hungry people , crime etc. Even though I hate bombay now, a part of me still feels some kind of a special attachment to it, its almost like your first romatinc affair which you can never forget.
Initially i faced struggle for six months for getting a job and a shelter in my dream city.I was staying at one of my relatives' apartment quite far from bombay and used to take daily commuting trains. Initially train commuting used to feel like a thrill with Bhajan singing people, people playing cards when there is no space even for standing , people reading newspapers or solving crosswords etc. But eventually very thought of riding in a local train used to scare me to death.
In the book suketu has covered his various encounters with people from different walks of life and parallely described his own years spent in bombay. Book successfully protrays a very correct view of bombay full of criminals , dance-bar girls , film people , police , businessmen and everyday people. It might be an eye-opener for even many long time residents since many of them wont be aware of various different things which bombay means to various different people. Certainly there is no such thing as one bombay. Within a bombay there are various different bombay coexiting with each other and sometimes one not realising the presence of another.
There are several interesting people's stories in the book for example Bar Dancer girl Honey who is actually a happily married male. Encouters with gangsters and sharp-shooters of Dawood's and other gangs are very daring efforts by Suketu. Book is filled with very lively true stories.
Overall a very readable and highly recommended book for anyone interested in knowing about bombay or Mumbai.
न जाने क्या बात है , बम्बई तेरे शबिस्तां में
कि हम शामे-अवध और सुबहे-बनारस छोड़ के चले आये
( I don't know what attracted me to your bed-chamber Bombay,
that I left the evening's of Awadh and the mornings of Benaras to come to you )
As I spent 3-4 years in bombay slowly my dream went sour and I started hating bombay for all that crowd , filth , pollution , human degradation , money hungry people , crime etc. Even though I hate bombay now, a part of me still feels some kind of a special attachment to it, its almost like your first romatinc affair which you can never forget.
Initially i faced struggle for six months for getting a job and a shelter in my dream city.I was staying at one of my relatives' apartment quite far from bombay and used to take daily commuting trains. Initially train commuting used to feel like a thrill with Bhajan singing people, people playing cards when there is no space even for standing , people reading newspapers or solving crosswords etc. But eventually very thought of riding in a local train used to scare me to death.
In the book suketu has covered his various encounters with people from different walks of life and parallely described his own years spent in bombay. Book successfully protrays a very correct view of bombay full of criminals , dance-bar girls , film people , police , businessmen and everyday people. It might be an eye-opener for even many long time residents since many of them wont be aware of various different things which bombay means to various different people. Certainly there is no such thing as one bombay. Within a bombay there are various different bombay coexiting with each other and sometimes one not realising the presence of another.
There are several interesting people's stories in the book for example Bar Dancer girl Honey who is actually a happily married male. Encouters with gangsters and sharp-shooters of Dawood's and other gangs are very daring efforts by Suketu. Book is filled with very lively true stories.
Overall a very readable and highly recommended book for anyone interested in knowing about bombay or Mumbai.
