Undulating Ungulate

The moose recently had the pleasure of reading Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, an endlessly fascinating window into a bustling, barely imaginable world happening right now.

Part autobiography, part travelogue, part anthropology, it is a startling study of modern Bombay. Mehta left for America as a young man and returned 20 years later. Through a remarkable set of connections he takes us from the Hindu/Muslim riots of the early 90′s into the Bombay underworld, the Bollywood scene, beer bar dancers and Jains, all the while bombarding the reader with the visceral madness of the world’s most densely populated city, the practicalities of life with fourteen million people on top of each other – most of whom are crammed into just one third of the city – and the stark realities of a world where life is damn cheap, the legal system doesn’t work, and everything depends on who you know. As well as a pop analysis of the Indian subconscious stemming from the severe sexual and social repression necessary for the society to function as it does.

He writes of his city the way a New Yorker speaks of New York, a mixture of frustration, infatuation and bewilderment. The writing is crisp and well paced. The characters are astounding, from a modern day uncorruptable Elliot Ness fighting the gangwar with torture and summary executions, to a 20 year old beer bar dancer (think fully clothed non strip clubs that are like strip clubs where you fall in love with the dancers and throw money at them for weeks until they sleep with you), philosophically troubled hit men, and a diamond merchant renouncing all possessions and family to become a wandering holy man. (The Jains are hardcore: a quote from a story of a Jain saint: “In what way would you like me to stand so you are put to the least inconvenience while peeling off my skin?”)

All the characters we meet (except the Jains) share the same fate – they are trapped in Bombay’s web, unable to escape, or really imagine a life outside their particular chaos. We are happy to have met them and have no idea what their future holds, like meeting people in the eye of a hurricane, the winds descend again and who knows if our paths will ever cross again.

Colourful, entertaining, eye-opening. Well worthwhile.

Filed by billy at 9:52 am under reading
Comments Off