Born in Calcutta and lived in Bombay for 9 years of his childhood, Suketu Mehta hails from a family of Gujarati diamond merchants spread world over. The son of this ‘globalized family’; himself has stayed in several countries and is a full time writer. The time he spent in Bombay (he calls it Bombay, and not Mumbai) has been the most memorable time of his life. Hence, when he had the urge to go back to his roots, he came back to Bombay, and not Calcutta or Ahmedabad, where most of his family lived. He explored the Bombay, trying to take in the beauty of this crowded city which belongs to a slum dweller, a millionaire, a gangster and a clerk alike.
There has been much written earlier about Bombay, its roads, lanes, bylanes; the local trains, chawls, the bollywood, the underworld, the people and much more… But the way Suketu Mehta sees it, it goes beyond it all; he depicts the darker side of Bombay, which is much more human than we can imagine. The man has a huge amount of curiosity and a greater understanding of human nature, which makes you realize certain facts and think about your own lives with a broader picture of LIFE at the background.
The book is divided into 3 parts: Power, Pleasure and Passages. Each of these portrays a different side of Bombay.
The Power part is devoted to the ultimate powers of Bombay: Shiv Sena (Bal Thackeray), the police (encounter specialists) and of course, the ultimate Underworld. Suketu is incredible when he meets Shiv Sena workers in slums, then the shooters of the underworld, the brave inspector Ajay Lal, then Bal Thackeray himself and talks to Chhota Shakeel-the Don on phone. On the way he also stops at the mini-Pakistan, Madanpura and gives us insights about people’s lives there. He doesn’t stop there; he becomes a part of the script-writing team of the movie Mission Kashmir and gives some vital information about the famous Bollywood-Underworld linkages. With his illustrative language, he captures the attention of the reader, and creates a web where all these lives are entangled with a giant spider of uncertainty of human life looming over their heads.
Bombay is a maya nagari as they say- it is a land of Pleasure, with Golpitha (the red light areas), the bars and bar dancers, the mujrewaalis and Bollywood strugglers. Suketu meets these all, becomes the best friend of a bar dancer, who shares her life and dreams with him. There is also a male bar dancer who dresses like a girl, and is the main crowd puller at the Sapphire bar. Who would believe that this person is not a eunuch, not a gay, but is a lower middle class married man with a wife at home who helps him ‘get ready for the night’! Then there is a bollywood struggler who finally gets a break in a B grade film. Suketu gets close and personal with all of them, and creates a collage out of unseen faces, unknown lives, and unrevealed passions.
In Passages, he walks down the memory mines, in his school days, and the changing cultures in Bombay. He also meets and helps a struggling poet, come all the way from Bihar, to recite his poems to the elite classes and masses of Bombay alike. The section ends with a chapter in Jainism, where he portrays a family of a billionaire Diamond Merchant in Bombay, husband, wife and 3 teenager kids, gets diksha and become sanyasis to attain moksha. He describes all the rituals and gets a few questions answered from the swami maharaj about their routine, their reasons and their lives. In this part of the book he is caught between the two lives of the merchant, one with pleasures, other with a path to salvation; and wonders what makes people leave all behind and follow the rituals, which sound somewhat illogical in today’s world.
The way Suketu Mehta writes about so many lives is sometimes satirical, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes with awe, sometimes with disgust, sometimes with his own opinions about them; but what arrests the readers’ attention is that he never forgets that these are humans; be it a gangster or a bar girl or a diamond merchant. That understanding gives a greater dimension to his observations and he makes you think about your Bombay. Every resident of Bombay sees the city differently, it means a lot to him/her; but to each, it means something different. Suketu gives you a roller-coaster ride of the city of hope, which is an agglomeration of individual dreams, a mass dream of the crowd…
What is your dream? What is Bombay to you?
review was pretty good, but because i havent read da book i cannot comment much...good attempt for a book review
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