Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Suketu Mehta

Five hundred pages of non-fiction about a city is not something I would ordinarily read. However, I have a strong affinity for Bombay (Mumbai) and this book came highly recommended by sources I have found excellent in the past. I read, I enjoyed, and now I recommend!

The author grew in Bombay and moved to the borough of Queens, New York, when he was a teenager. Twenty-one years later, he, his wife, and two young children moved to Bombay, as he undertook a project to write a book about the city of his youth.

Bombay is a unique megalopolis of 14 million residents. Suketu Mehta gives us an incredible and very stunning view of this city, unlike anything you might read in a classroom textbook. Mehta manages to befriend very unique characters which enables him to unveil this city from unexpected angles. His interviews and stories encompass the criminal underworld, murderers, cops, and gangsters. He examines the lives of bar dancers, Bollywood producers, actors, and wannabes. He includes important politicians and even a wealthy Jain family that gives away all their wealth to become renunciants.

All of this is woven into a tale that has the drama and conflict of fiction, along with the revelations that only truth can bring.

It is a remarkable book about a remarkable city and one which I think most readers would really enjoy.

Review by Len Oppenheim