My review of Maximum City

Maximum city: Suketu Mehta

Since long I had being hearing a lot of good about this book and being a Mumbaiite, I wanted to read this one. I was finally able to lay my hands on this book last month (Courtesy QA Library). Now that I am through with it, I am glad that I didn’t buy this book (thanks to Vijay who always discouraged me from buying this book). I didn’t like it.

The author is an NRI, who had moved out of Mumbai in his school days. He came back to Mumbai with his family after fifteen years. This is when he did his research and wrote this book. The book is actually a peep into Mumbai (Mumbai, he says is one of kind.), from different angles. Mehta has written about the Mumbai weather, the 1993 riots, politicians, Bollywood (films and people), Mumbai police, schools, real estate, gangsters, bar dancers, slum dwellers, visitors to the city, the spirit of the city, etc, etc.. The only good part about the book is that it is honest and transparent and I would give full credit to the author for his meticulous research (since it would be difficult for an outsider to actually unearth information regarding some of the sensitive issues he has written about). Mehta is also very observant. There are many things which he writes about, which only people who have stayed in Mumbai for long can visualise.

Now the bad part! Since most of the book is based on interviews, most of the data is scattered and lacking continuity. You could read about a topic for five pages, then suddenly there would be something completely new on the sixth page, then again the old topic would resume on the eighth page and so on. There is a clear lack of continuity. Most of the people Mehta has written about are the ones whom he had befriended (some names in the books have been changed… but surprisingly only the names of people who are not famous have been changed.. The popular names are all in there adding to the selling value of the book.. Smart move on the part of the author!). Infact Vidhu Vinod Chopra was quite upset when Mehta included some private information about him in the book, which he shouldn’t have (http://soniafaleiro.blogspot.com/2005/09/twas-me.html).

There are also some topics on the book, which have been stretched. There is also a lot of repeat of material. Some of the topics are just tales of his interaction with the people, which have no connection whatsoever with the ongoing topic. The worst part is the last seventy pages of the book, which are better to be skipped. All in all, only a select few topics in the book.. which is approx 1/3 rd of the book (riots, Mumbai police, bollywood) are worth reading and the rest can be ignored. The good part of the book gets over in the first half, the second half is boring..no other word for it.

Mehta comes across as fearless, if you take into consideration the things he has written about some of the big men here…but its easy to do that when you stay in another continent. I don’t think he will ever return to Mumbai.

Mumbai…where people don’t forgive easy.