Bombay, beyond midnight
By Neil Wijeratne.
Calcutta born and now New York based writer Suketu Mehta's
non-fiction
masterpiece "Maximum City, Bombay lost and found" (Published by Penguin/Viking) brought back lightning memories on India's most exciting city, once known as Bombay and now called Mumbai.
Certainly, Bombay stands tall amongst other Indian cities, mainly because of its colour, glamour, excitement and the attitude of its cricket & film addicted people. Their attitude towards life is more closer to European style rather than of South Asian.
Visiting this metropolitan city of night life, itself is an experience. True, any first timer would fascinate with its dance & song filled films, crowded bazaars-markets & fancy streets, mammoth buildings of colonial architecture, the marvel of the Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Palace & towers, Victoria Terminus, huge maidans and the colouful sight of Marine Drive, originating from Nariman Point to Malabar Hill passing through Chowpatty beach. But there's something beyond and hidden. And that's what they call "real Bombay".
Set in the backdrop of this "Bombay within", Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City, Bombay lost & found" brings us an amusing and revealing story of this Arabian sea bordering city and its people.
Mehta divided his book to three sections; Power, Pleasure and Passages. It starts with a personal memoir, the author's acquaitance with the city, its history and people. Then the long journey with the author commence; firstly meeting a few members of Shiv Sena party, with whom the author discuss about Bombay riots of 1992-93 and the Ayodhya incident. And then to Bombay underworld before moving on to confront city's black-collar workers and Vadpav-eaters. The chapters titled "Number two after Scotland Yard", "A City in Heat" and "Distilleries of Pleasure", certainly picture a curious experience for the
reader. Passing through dance parlours, beer parlours, whorehouses and night clubs, the reader meets Honey, a famous night club dancer who is actually not a "she" but a "he". Next in line is sexy Monalisa, a bar girl. Through Monalisa's story the reader could enter another hidden area of Bombay life before moving on to the Bollywood film world.
For a reader Mehta's book provides a colourful insight of "inner Bombay" of which most of the trevellers are clueless. Although a regular visitor to Bombay, by the time I turned the last page of this 584 page volume, I felt that I have seen a completely a new city through the images of a known city, which was unseen by me through the naked eyes.
To tell the Bombay tale, Suketu Mehta has adopted a novel narrative technique which is refreshing thus bringing second thoughts on reader's mind of the interlink between fiction and
non-fiction.
In conclusion I must say that Suketu Mehta's book is a fabulous picturisation of "Bombay Within".