Maximum city free ebook

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. As each individual story unfolds, Mehta also recounts his own efforts to make a home in Bombay after more than twenty years abroad.

Candid, impassioned, funny, and heartrending, Maximum City is a revelation of an ancient and ever-changing world. With our online resources, you can find Maximum City or any type of ebook, for any type of product.

Read online Maximum City eBook Here. To start downloading, you must first log in you already have an account , if you dont have an account then you must first register. For you who dont have an account, please register for FREE. Our eBooks Library are practiced and complete. By downloading this application and saving it on a smartphone, tablet or laptop; then all people can read anywhere and anytime. If you have successfully registered, then you will be free to download Maximum City by Suketu Mehta PDF ebook file for your needs and hobbies to read books, and also other ebooks.

The total number of ebooks available here reaches 89, books and will certainly continue to grow. We simplified the search for PDF e-books without digging. And by having access to our online e-books or by storing them on your computer, you have convenient answers with the e-book Maximum City. To start finding Maximum City, you are right to find our website which has a complete collection of ebooks listed. Our library is the largest of these which literally have hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

You will also see that there are specific sites suitable for different types or categories of related products, brands or niches Maximum City eBook PDF. So depending on what exactly you are looking for, you will be able to choose e-books according to your needs. Every book in this application is provided in full according to basic needs for those of you who like to read. Thus the article about Download Maximum City Ebook. May be useful. Save - NLP Success is a blog for readers, book enthusiasts.

The contents of this blog include simple links in the public domain to contents hosted on other servers on the network, such as box. The material is made available for educational, criticism, discussion and teaching purposes only as required by Article 70 of the L. If it is necessary to request the removal of one or more contents you can use the Contact page or the page dedicated to the DMCA. View 2 comments. Aug 08, Kavita rated it really liked it Shelves: travel , indian-authors , history , india , autobiography-memoir.

As someone who grew up in the 90s in Mumbai, I lived in my middle class bubble, broken only by the riots and the rampant street sexual harassment.

I watched the city take a rebirth with a new name, just one of a re-naming spree around the country. But though I knew that there were things going on, they were just somewhere out there and nothing to do with me.

With Maximum City , Suketu Mehta brings those 'things' right under your nose making them hard to ignore. Maximum City is about the shadow wor As someone who grew up in the 90s in Mumbai, I lived in my middle class bubble, broken only by the riots and the rampant street sexual harassment.

Maximum City is about the shadow world of Mumbai, the place where politicians and gangsters, filmmakers and dance bar girls, the police and the public, all gather to feed off each other's negative traits. The first deals with power - namely, the hold of Shiv Sena, Mumbai's political and labour history, as well as the corruption in the police force. The Mumbai riots of 92 and the complicity of the political parties as well as the police was investigated and presented in detail.

The gangsters, the gang wars, and their interplay with politicians and the police is also explored. Then comes the pleasure section, where Mehta talks about the restaurant businesses, the dance bars, and Bollywood.

Here, he takes up with a bar girl and develops a semi-crush on her. Hope his wife doesn't read this book! And finally, Bollywood and its struggles with the underworld and the government also makes it to these pages. There are a lot of other titbits in these pages as well. One of my personal favourites is about the Jain family which took deeksha together. This was a fine work of investigative journalism and Mehta took risks as he cavorted around with gangsters and policemen.

I read some negative reviews of the book by other Indians, and it was amusing to see how they were all about how Mehta was against Hinduism and India.

Well, the underworld was strong in the 90s and there was religious discord. They were tough times. Deal with it! Living in an elite bubble doesn't make Mehta wrong or negate those lives which were lived under these circumstances.

Today, those dance bars are shut down, the underworld is mostly wiped out, and the 90s is long gone. I have also moved out.

But more and more people still pour into Mumbai. The book should be of interest to anyone interested in Mumbai. Just remember that it's only one aspect of life in the city - the darker side.

I keep wondering what happened today to these people Mehta chronicled in these pages. That speaks to the excellence of Maximum City. It made me care about the characters, real as they are. View 1 comment. Sep 13, Caroline rated it did not like it Shelves: world. 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 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 au In spite of this book being lavished with positive reviews both in the press and here on Goodreads, I found it incredibly boring.

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. View all 16 comments. May 24, Anusha Jayaram rated it did not like it Shelves: absolutely-hated. This is one of the toughest books I've ploughed through.

That's because every page I turned just ended up increasing my irritation with Suketu Mehta. Perhaps even more important to state is this: that this book is potentially dangerous. To an uninitiated reader, the misrepresentations, and biases glaringly obvious to me This is one of the toughest books I've ploughed through. To an uninitiated reader, the misrepresentations, and biases glaringly obvious to me of the writer would amount to a warped, if not completely wrong, understanding of Mumbai as a city, and even the country as a whole.

I picked up this book because it seemed interesting: who would pass up a chance at discovering more about a city as vibrant and diverse as Mumbai? Right from the beginning, his condescending tone hits the reader. Along with his complete confusion; he just doesn't know what he wants!

He returns to Mumbai from New York, in search of the city he grew up in. This kind of nostalgia could have been endearingly naive. The problem is the sneering outsider's tone he adopts upon his return: the constantly whining, patronising tone.

It really is all-pervasive, that persistent note of complaint, running through over a hundred pages of print! You feel like shaking him, demanding to know why he came back to Bombay of all cities, if he was going to get all delicate and fragile and do nothing but complain about the place. He doesn't know what he wants for his children. He is stuck in a time warp - of the city as it was when he grew up in it.

He wants his son to have exactly the education he had while growing up. But his son doesn't fit in, so he complains about his son's school, about the parents of other children studying in that school - because they weren't "inclusive enough". Subsequently, when it emerges that his son is happier in an expensive school, studying with rich kids, that is a cause for complaint too, because now his son would go on "..

As he's worrying about his son growing up looking down on a certain section of society, he displays rank hypocrisy with his own elitist attitude towards Marathi speaking locals: ".. Maharashtra to us was our servants, the banana lady downstairs, the text books we were force-fed in school. We had a term for them - ghatis.. I was in the fourth standard when Marathi became compulsory. How we groaned. It was the servants' language, we said But the thought of his son looking down at the kind of kid he used to be himself, the slice of society that Mehta himself had belonged to, now THAT was truly worrying [sarcasm alert]!

Mehta does not seem to be able to identify with ANY class of society, let alone with humanity at large; he merely finds fault with them all, mocking their lifestyles and thoughts with what he assumes to be witty sarcasm. It comes across as empty clamour for attention. He sneers contemptuously at the rich, their parties, and their lifestyles. He looks down on the poor, cringes at the squalor in which they live, not because he feels sympathy for their predicament, but because he feels disgust.

He distrusts them, often implying his low opinion of their behaviour. As for the middle class, he can only refer patronizingly to them, ridiculing their beliefs and way of life, believing himself to be superior somehow, and a class apart. And I found the language insufferable. Let me illustrate with an example. There is a line "..

It doesn't even sound one bit artsy, or poetic, if that's what he was going for. Neither does it sound like clear intelligible English. And the book is full of such attempts at sounding poetic or deep. Coverage of the Bombay riots is patchy, and partisan. Many lives were lost, and the story can be given any kind of spin the writer wants, merely by selecting what one decides to narrate. There are so many stories of atrocity on both sides. But the impression that comes across while reading Mehta's carefully picked stories, is that of a writer attempting to project himself as that sensitive thinking individual, replete with all its holier-than-thou-ness.

The topic of Hindu-Muslim riots is provocative enough without Mehta resorting to theatrics to grab readers' eyeballs, and more dangerously, their imagination. His prose is needlessly polarising, instead of even attempting to be matter of fact; which is what any unbiased writer would strive for.

Sadly, however, Mehta does exactly the opposite, resorting to needles and excessive dramatisation of every instance. He lends religious and political colour to otherwise neutral statements, referring to a cry of "Bharat mata ki jai" as being "..

Overall, that chapter gives the reader an overwhelming sensation that this is all about the writer, about how he's trying to project his own image, how he resorts to cheap theatrics to try and keep gullible readers hooked to his story. Because that's exactly how it reads: like an action novel whose storyline has been scripted to polarise the reader, not like a non-fiction book supposedly presenting a neutral fact sheet of events. Then there's more misrepresentation and hypocrisy in Mehta's depiction on underworld gang leader, Chotta Shakeel: "Chotta Shakeel, the operational commander of the Muslim gangs, is doing what the government has failed to do.

He is extracting revenge for the riots. He is going after people like the ex-Mayor, Milind Vaidya, who was named in the Srikrishna report for having personally attacked Muslims. Shakeel is consulting the report; he is the executive to Srikrishna's judiciary. To a reader unfamiliar with India, or with Mumbai, this would make Chotta Shakeel seem like an eastern cousin of Robin Hood, or a vigilante, meting out justice where the law of the land fails to deliver justice.

Mehta fails to give the most rudimentary introduction to who Chotta Shakeel actually is: one of the closest aides of Dawood Ibrahim, who needs no introduction, being among the world's most dreaded criminals. That this book did not deserve the respect of being taken seriously. Honestly, it doesn't even warrant the time taken to read it, but I have my own compulsive I-will-finish-this-book-I-started issues I'm still grappling with.

Take for example this discussion on renting an apartment in Mumbai, and the concept of a paying guest: "There are three personal gods that every Hindu is supposed to revere: mother, father, guest. There is no category for 'paying guest'.. You're left wondering how religion suddenly leapfrogged into the picture. There's obviously more fiendish regionalism from Mehta when he describes the changing of "Bombay" to "Mumbai": "In , the Sena demanded that we choose, in all our languages, Mumbai.

This is how the ghatis took revenge on us. They renamed everything after their politicians, and finally they renamed even the city. If they couldn't afford to live on our roads, they could at least occupy our road signs. That sentence just makes no sense at all. All it does is betray his contempt for all Marathi speaking people, and expose his bitterness and small-minded regional bigotry.

There were many, many more such infuriating passages if they irritated me this much, I don't even know how much they'd irritate Marathi people who bothered reading this drivel. But it wouldn't make sense for me to quote them all - I could rewrite the book itself.. Had Mehta tried to tie in the socio-political situation with the lives of the people he interacted with, mapped out the effects of economic changes on people's lives, it could have been very insightful.

Instead, he frittered away all the resources at his disposal, playing fast and loose with journalistic objectivity in the process. The later chapters actually cover some very fascinating topics, from encounter killings and the lives of Mumbai city cops to beer bars, and the lives of bar dancers there. Mehta has managed to learn about their lives to an extent that most people would not be able to. And things get interesting for a while. But then, he gets back to his own self, in the chapter "Memory Mines", and his voice - familiar and obnoxious - washes over you once again..

And you just want to kill him all over again.. It may have been 25 years since he graduated from school, but he shows none of the maturity you'd expect from an alumnus of so many years, when he goes back to his school. His school-boy's resentment disguised as contempt for "toppers" is amply showcased in his hateful passage on state-examinations: "..

Shortly after the state examinations were out, the photographs of the toppers would appear in the newspapers, in ads for the coaching classes where they had toiled night and day. They wore thick glasses and looked enervated from frequent masturbation. None of them were smiling at their triumph. They didn't look like they'd smiled in a month. And they were almost all of them destined to be parked on bureaucrats' chairs, in government and in corporations, to make life hell for all the rest of us who goofed off in school, went out dancing, and generally had been arousing their envy from kindergarten..

Mehta goes on, in his last chapter, to discuss a Jain family who takes "diksha". But by this time, I was just waiting for the book to end, so I could just go to sleep without my OCD consuming me about having left a book unfinished. OK, so Durjoy Dutta might be close competition here, but at least the nonsense he writes is fiction, it lays no claim to being factual.

And, as an aside, in my defence, I only read the one Durjoy Dutta book because it was a birthday present! Aug 30, Maura Finkelstein rated it it was ok Recommends it for: anyone who likes pornography.

I'm fascinated by the hype over Mehta's travelogue. This book portrays women as objects, poor people as criminals, and the Bollywood elite as deserving the resentment of a bitter New York based writer who can't quite find a place in the city of his youth. So I'm struggling to understand what all the hype is about.

This is not, contrary to what reviews would lead us to believe, a book about Bombay. Instead, it's a book about being an outsider, and it does a decent job grappling with alienation and I'm fascinated by the hype over Mehta's travelogue. Instead, it's a book about being an outsider, and it does a decent job grappling with alienation and nostalgia. It's also a book about misogyny and elitism, at least as experienced by an unsympathetic narrator.

But as a book about Bombay, I think I missed something critical here. There is the glitz of Bollywood, the glam of dancing girls, the grime of the underworld. But there is nothing about the city: a city that is so much more than the stereotypes Mehta is fixated upon. I felt dirty after reading this book, like a voyeur who realizes the implications of their own gaze. View all 3 comments. Nov 11, Yigal Zur rated it really liked it.

Mumbai is a fascinating city. Mehta give a lovely view of the interesting and intriguing stories of the city. Sep 02, Suresh rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Indophiles Travel readers history buffs south-asian enthusiasts and watchers. I had heard about the book for a while now but just managed to pick the book few months ago at the airport during a business trip.

I loved the book mostly because I am from bombay as well and just like Suketu, I have moved to Bombay and back few times in my life. Everything in the book was very real for me and there were times when it felt like he literally took words out of my mouth. I would highly recommend this book to Indophiles, Travel readers and even history buffs. There are few things I I had heard about the book for a while now but just managed to pick the book few months ago at the airport during a business trip.

There are few things I would like to critique about this book : A I think the author's style of writing comes too close to V. Naipaul's style and he admits in the prologue that he did prepare for ths book by reading lots of V. I am not totally turned off by it because VS Naipaul happens to be one of my favorite authors too but it may be off-putting for other readers. B At about two thirds into the book I suddenly developed fatigue and found myself skipping pages and sections till I found something that picked up my interest.

For example I found it bit tiring when he goes on and on about the bar girls and at times the narrative became extremely draggy. I then jumped to the bollywood sections and the momentum picked up. C The mood of the book swings wildy from humor to tragedy to violence and at times even engages in sensationalism that I began questioning the "truth" in the narration.

But the narrative bounces back by redeeming itself after those brief spells of incredulity. D Even though the book is supposed to be non-fiction I found the author very manipulative in style like a fictional story teller.

For example he keeps the dates of his encounters with the characters bit nebulous and goes back and forth to some characters using their quotes mixing it with his own commentary to present a very romanticized or sensational story that mirrors his own personal view on the subject.

For example it tends to reinforce the stereo types that most of us may agree with such as "Generally the mafia in bombay are most Muslims", "Gujaratis are business minded", "Hindu criminals though equally bad are slight better because they suffer from guilt and are god fearing", "Bollywood stars and directors are shallow and superficial", "Bombay is a filth pit of pollution and shit" etc.

This paints some of the characters and situation in bad light without telling you all the sides of the story. Its this style that makes the book seem like fiction at times and honestly for some maybe even the charm of the book. It may also be that perhaps he had lot of research material to sift thru but he deliberately selected the stories to suit his hidden agenda of coming up with a best seller for the international audience.

And he chooses his stories based on his own personal convictions rather than telling them objectively purely from the character's view point. I read somewhere that after the book was published his relationship with one of the bollywood characters in the book Vinod the director soured and they are estranged now. I personally dont care about this since I am from bombay and consider myself knowledgeable enough to seperate fact from fiction, I just wanted to caution the readers here: Beware the author is extremely intelligent writer and if he manages to manipulate your consciousness and sway your opinions, then its intentional.

And maybe that only indicates that he is an extremely good writer. More power to him in that case:- I sincerely hope that this book encourages more south asians to adopt this style and genre of writing and we get to read more interesting books on India which is itself on the dawn of transformation and progress.

There are millions of fascinating stories and live drama occurring in the streets of india every day that just needs to be captured in a medium that the world may find fascinating and can watch or read about in this century. Don't be surprised if this book is made into a movie or documentary.

Sep 07, Lena rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction. 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 th This book was a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed certain sections of this book, but it was uneven and I found myself skimming the last third. Oct 31, Liza marked it as will-i-ever-finish-these-books.

I'm having a difficult time finishing this book. I usually read it for a few days and then need a break due to the overwhelming detail and drama that Mehta inserts into his prose. I honestly liked the beginning of the book in which Mehta made me feel as though I could see Bombay: crowding around a street stall for the best food in town, the need to bribe every public official for every little and big convenience, the dearth of toilets, the omnipresent din, the rich, the poor, etc.

But now I'm I'm having a difficult time finishing this book. But now I'm stuck on a section where Mehta is fixated upon a beer bar girl.

It seems overly "male gaze" to me, especially when the previous section was his expose of the gangwar. He's a drooling, over-eager fourteen-year-old boy--a fourteen year old boy who then goes home to his wife and child and has fancy dinner parties--and I can't help rolling my eyes.

I know I'm totally ignorant since I've never been to Bombay, but it's as if someone wrote a book about NYC and just wrote about partying with strippers from Scores and rolling with gang bangers then retired every evening to their loft in Soho. Give me a break, Mehta, and decide whether you're a journalist or a memoirist. You can't be both. Nov 09, Jashan Singhal rated it it was amazing.

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. 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 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. 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..

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- 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.

Jun 14, Avidreader rated it did not like it. This book is pathetic. All the author did was rent a bunch of hindi movies and rehashed them in detail. I simply can't understand the positive reviews--especially those of Indian readers, who have probably seen these movies over and over.

The similarities are so striking, some of the dialogs have been quoted--verbatim. Not to mention the drivel at the beginningof the book-Mr. Mehta should be ashamed of himself for delving onmicro castism. In today's day and age only an incredibly regressive kind This book is pathetic. In today's day and age only an incredibly regressive kind can unabashedly discuss marathis, punjabis and so on in such great detail.

And by the way, Mr Mehta, the reason you did not know many maharashtrians while growing up is because they are usually found in schools and colleges or in fortune companies! Living in jackson heights you might want to generalise a little about gujaratis too while you are at it. To me, the author has an immense sense of self persecution as he is neither comfortable in a playground in New York city nor is he comfortable in Bombay.

What is also inconsistent is his claims of being dissed in manhattan when his son eats kichidi in a playground and then Mr. Mehta after a few chapters mentions he was making pasta in Bomaby.

Mehta, it would have perhaps helped your persecuted self if you had pasta in manhattan and khichdi in bombay. But that wasnt the part that offended me the most, the fact that something so unoriginal and so underresearched made it to the Pulitzer list is astounding. Mehta has not done any investigative journalism all he is done is third hand reporting. If he would like to know what investigative reporting is he should look up Dey from Midday.

Mehta is no Woodward, as he would have his readers believe. May 22, Mirnalini Venkatraman rated it really liked it Shelves: 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 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 u I have taken the longest time to finish a book.

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. 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. 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 Extraordinary. This book deserves better, with perhaps a new foreword from the writer? That would be something I'd pay top dollar for. Nov 29, Anna — ARC reader extraordinaire! Outstanding in every way! Feb 15, Ryan rated it really liked it. 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 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.

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-tovers in Mumbai. 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 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. Jul 23, Sean McKenna rated it liked it. My goal in reading this book was to get some context about Bombay before visiting for the first time. I realized that the book was not itself a history of the city but I had hoped that there would be sufficient background provided to help me understand Bombay as it exists today and then to illustrate some of the ways in which it is unique.

I probably should have done more research on the nature of the book since it mostly failed to meet my goal. The bits of historical context ended up being few a My goal in reading this book was to get some context about Bombay before visiting for the first time. The bits of historical context ended up being few and far between. When I did come across them - such as a description of the impact of rent control imposed in the s - they were quite interesting and enlightening, which really makes me wish there had been more.

As for understanding the city as it exists today, Maximum City is probably more interesting for people who have lived in the city and already understand the surface of it very well.

Most of the characters that Mehta profiled - gangsters and exotic dancers among them - live in the shadows so understanding their lives in the city is not as valuable to me as a brief visitor as learning more about the more visible demographics, say shopkeepers or rickshaw drivers. Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed pieces of the book very much but found long stretches hard to get through. Perhaps I will give it another read after I've spent more time in the city.

In the latter half of Maximum City, a man by the name of Babbanji is reported to have suggested naming this then yet-to-be-written book "Untold Life", saying that There is plenty of discussion about the lives of the rich, but nothing is spoken about the lives of the poor.

That one statement accurately summarises the problem with Mumbai. It also capsulises the fault of this book, the least of which is that it ended up being named what it is.

It is perhaps my unorthodox approach to Suketu In the latter half of Maximum City, a man by the name of Babbanji is reported to have suggested naming this then yet-to-be-written book "Untold Life", saying that There is plenty of discussion about the lives of the rich, but nothing is spoken about the lives of the poor.

It is perhaps my unorthodox approach to Suketu Mehta's oeuvre that has disappointed me, because I read his latest and most mature work, This Land Is Our Land, before this one.

Nevertheless, I have several bones to pick with Maximum City — the book, shockingly, more than its namesake. But first, credit where it's due: the portions on the riots, the Rent Act, Bal Thackeray and the underworld were genuinely interesting.

However, I found the rest of this book largely composed of sometimes well-written but ultimately, awfully privileged drivel. Apart from the sections I just mentioned, this book offers nothing new whatsoever; much of it could be described as some sort of a PR stunt for the illustrious illusion that Mumbai maintains.

Throughout this book, I felt like far too much focus was put on things that already get more than their fair share of attention, be it Bollywood in general or Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Mission Kashmir in particular. The chapter, 'Distilleries of Pleasure' reminded me of how nauseating the Hindi film industry is, but that's a function Bollywood performs for itself every single day, anyway. And then, there were the good ol' recurring irritants. Look, I get it. In Maximum City, every time Mumbai deters from objectifying women, it is Mehta who rather subtly steps in.

His Bombay is a city of sex, violence and riches. Unsurprisingly, then, he starts a chapter called "Vadapao-eaters' City", by foregrounding himself and trying a vadapao to gain legitimacy.

It's one of the shortest chapters in this nearly-six-hundred pager tome. All true significance, hence, is lost, and nothing of note is found. Apr 18, Jonathan rated it it was amazing. As Mehta tells it--and how brilliantly does he tell it! 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.

A lot of purple prose here, but some of it is really justified. After all, when you're surrounded by Muslim gangsters, Jainist monks, underage call girls, and Bollywood movie producers, all set against the backdrop of one of the world's strangest and filthiest cities, you're allowed to use a little literary hyperbole. Mehta's a journalist who returns to his hometown of Bombay to explore the underworld and write some in-depth portraits of its denizens.

He does a great job of it, even though he him A lot of purple prose here, but some of it is really justified. He does a great job of it, even though he himself sometimes comes off as a little bit of a prig.

Characters like Vinod, Honey, Kamal and Ajay are all richly drawn, and their whole environment really comes alive. I like the wealthy mafia hit man who refuses to leave his tin shack in the Jogeswhari slums because he can't sleep without at least 6 people in a room, or the police inspector who openly tortures dozens of suspected criminals in front of Mehta without even a concern for prosecution.

The whole book is just filled with these surreal little scenes. Mehta even provides a good political background to things like the BJP party's unfathomable power in the city they successfully banned Valentine's day through simple mob violence and Bombay's strange brand of Hindu nationalism.

One surprising aspect here is how pervasive the influence of Pakistan is in the underworld, all the gangster dons are directing their forces from Karachi or occasionally Dubai , and the ISI is clearly arming chawla thugs in the slums with grenades and AKs. It seems like most of the lives in the book unconsciously revolve around the aftershocks from the partition.