| Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found | 
 enlarge | Author: Suketu Mehta
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $9.66
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (79 reviews)
Sales Rank: 11587
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0375703403
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.79205
EAN: 9780375703409
ASIN: 0375703403
Publication Date: September 27, 2005
Release Date: September 27, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insider?s view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
Maximum cultural eye-opener. December 29, 2008
To someone like myself who had never been to India, nor had business dealings with Indians, this book was a Godsend. On the recommendation of a Bombay/Mumbai native I read it cover to cover before spending 4 months in India. The insight into the mentality and culture of Indian thinking is both entertaining and priceless to anyone wishing to visit, live or do business there. The author's personal adventure into the sometimes overlapping grey areas of law enforcement, mafia & underground, politics and entertainment make for a fascinating read that your average person, much less foreign visitor, may never get to experience in this land of a billion Gods. After recent terror attacks in Mumbai, the political Muslim/Hindu motivated clashes that are addressed become even more spine-chilling as this book was written years ago. In addition to being a good reference on the subject, the author's own life story and blind-siding humor make it often a book one won't want to put down. The "undercover" work it must have taken to put together as well as the fluidity of discourse makes this book a must read for anyone interested in India or the Maximum City itself.
 Satisfied customer December 16, 2008
Bought this book for my wife and was impressed by the state of the book. No pages were torn, though not all pages were cut in the right dimensions, which I take as the reason it was cheap. Doesnt matter to me, I love the book and the state it is in.
"You own this city by your anger" December 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Bombay, Lost & Found," as its subtitle pinpoints, covers Mehta's quest as a native who returns there for two years around 1999. His own story's mingled into those told about a pro-Hindu political party, Sena; Sunil, hit man for the Dawood faction; Ajay who turns rogue cop to fight crime better than he can on a force where one officer missed a rampaging elephant at ten feet due to his antiquated rifle; a couple of memorably described "bar girls"-- Honey's a married man who dresses as a woman for his living while sultry Monalisa's skilled in learning what makes men hard and makes them soft in many inventive ways beyond the mere flesh. These precede his interesting but overly detailed experiences as a co-writer of a "Bollywood" film, "Mission Kashmir." This thick volume concludes with a slum family who moves to the exurban instant sprawl of Mira Road, and another family of Jain diamond merchants who renounce their wealth and their marital ties to wander the roads as they seek merit for a salvation that gives up even a belief in God. In this way, they move towards "moksha," the annihilation that they trust will follow a worthy death. This earns the narrative, at last after five hundred dense pages, its most poignant and powerful scenes.
Since Mumbai, as it's been renamed, somewhat spuriously by the Hindu nationalists according to Mehta, has unfortunately earned much attention the past ten days, I decided to read this book, which had been on my "what next" shelf anyway, right away. It's very broad in its scope, insightful but unwieldy, and crammed with minute detail that while it may please or anger those who have lived among its 19 million inhabitants (five hundred more enter the city each day), may test the patience of those, like myself, not up on many terms sprinkled from Indian languages. A glossary could have helped, as only at their initial mention does Mehta give the meaning; often it's contextual and not explicit. This makes for a smooth read if you're familiar with the lingo, but it can challenge the rest of us.
His rationale: he trades stories as his currency, and gains the trust of gangsters, cops, bar girls, a talented college dropout poet who lives on the "footpath," and ambitious filmmakers. What they have in common, he finds late in his account, is their eagerness for transgression. So many citizens live circumscribed by tradition, family duty, work, and the hassles of dealing with "influence"-- without the personal connection or the greased palm, one cannot succeed in a culture that values the collective ties as much as the individual merit. You must cultivate power.
Why does anyone put up with such an overwhelming place? "Your discomfort is an investment" (472); one sacrifices so one's children or cousins will succeed there. The human spirit, nurtured in villages, has yet to catch up to this megapolitan pace. Millions keep arriving; few seem to leave. This adds force to the Jain family's bold decision to "resign before dismissal" in their emigation, their reversal back to begging on the roads. They alone among so many characters turn from the accumulation of wealth that drives, of course, everyone else into the city.
Mehta's at his best in passing observations that support larger points: how two straight men tend to use a restroom if together, how a Bollywood film skips from point A to point Z, how a city of extremities of luxury and squalor manages to make anonymity a retreat for its lovers and loiterers who must copulate and beg and defecate in public. He notes how its residents automatically turn towards the sea, a counter-orientation, whenever they gaze. It's noisy, dangerous, yet within it for endurance, people must re-create their personal connections if they wish to make it there. "Bombay is, like any other Indian city, full of people in search of answers to the question 'Who am I?'" (100) The danger, as Mehta finds when interviewing the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, "a tired, aging fascist," is that many in this tense environment will then take the interrogation to its next step: "Who is not I?" Analyzing the 1993 riots between Hindus and Muslims, Mehta delves into what's since then become repeated in strife all around the world.
"You own this city by right of your anger," (88) he seethes at one point, dealing with its endlessly labyrinthine networks. The recent terrorist attacks seem predicted, as this telling of roughly a decade ago warns of the Hindu enclave surrounded by Muslims eager to attack the financial core of India. Beneath the wedding-cake Taj Hotel, which we learn was erected in 1902 by a Hindu angered at his exclusion from the British-controlled Watson hotel, the desperation percolates: for the price of a breakfast there, one can afford a maid's salary for a month. A hit-man may murder for as low as his take of $35. Prostitutes may be procured for less than $1.50. "Black-collar workers" in the criminal underground infiltrate the police and vice versa. Mehta finally must retreat from his reporting for this reason that he may be "encountered" by the very officer he has been interviewing. Even with Monalisa, Mehta cannot reveal his family's existence, for fear that he can be traced and tracked as that "bar-line industry" merges with the underworld and back to the cops. It's a terrifying realm of "anti-alchemists," who turn all into iron.
So, this spawling, uneven, but thoughtful report from the planet's largest concentration of people shows much to marvel at, and lots to mourn over. It takes willpower to keep moving through it, as it repeats the nature of its massive subject. Form follows content. Density's the leitmotif. A 1947 Rent Act keeps much of the housing at rates that even a New Yorker like Mehta's taken aback by. People may pull you on to a train in solidarity, as it speeds past slums less than a yard from the tracks. Bar girls may be showered with rupees, enough to feed hundreds who beg outside the club. The endemic poverty, bribery, and failure of socialism make the untrammeled rout of capitalism all the more fearsome and, for most, appealing. As one actor rues, the success story of one who's made it makes for a hundred disappointments. The villages hear the city emigrant's rags-to-riches tale, magnified in the telling, and the allure of Bombay grows brighter on the rural screen.
Mehta reminds us that by 2015, the population will, unimaginably, again double, "the world outside gradually crowding the world inside." (538) It's a city of extremities, with all on display and nowhere to hide one's inner self except in the ambitions and dreams that compel its natives to yearn for it even if they can afford to leave, and once there-- if less favored-- most probably to cling to its humid yet inviting shores no matter what. Even in this press of people, Mehta holds out for the hope that "they have not yet been programmed."
Fascinating book December 5, 2008
I read this book as Mumbai shooting was taking place. One of the gangsters described in the book said, "The next one (riot/terror attack) will be much bigger... it'll be planned..." !!! Then I read an interview in WSJ about the "top cop" in Mumbai, Rakesh Maria, whom I immediately recognized from the book, despite under a different name. It's a strange feeling because of the timing coincidence - almost like someone is describing what's really happening behind the scene of Mumbai Massacre!! When I read in the news that the capture gunman confessed, who at the beginning asking to be allowed to live, yet after the interrogations, asking to be killed, I could see in front of my eyes the tactics, perhaps tortures, used on this person, because of the detailed descriptions in the book. I knew nearly nothing about India prior to this book. Mehta had painted such a vivid picture of Mumbai, at time I felt I was walking the streets there. I admire his courage of going deep in the gangwar interviewing the "shooters", knowing he could be killed at any time. I gave it a 4 star instead of 5 because I would've appreciated an Index or Glossary section in the book, because for someone who's unfamiliar with Hindi, it's difficult at times to keep track of all the names, places, & terms. Overall an outstanding book. I truly enjoyed reading it.
 Well written but woefully inaccurate November 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Amazed though I am about how author tried to fit all stuff about Mumbai in this book the cost is that- without even reasoning and just mentioning facts it shows a level of inability to understand the actual ground facts and false of authority which is immature though not wrong. Being a Mumbai native does not give any one right to mention or come to indigenous conclusions with stated sense of accuracy. One needs high level of maturity and thorough knowledge to mention facts briefly but with sense of comprehensive authority.Mr.Mehta is seriously lacking these abilities and writing a book does not make one a master of subject as is understandable from this experience.Mr.Mehta needs to update his woefully inadequate sociopolitical knowledge and rewrite this book for everyone's sake and for accuracy.
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