Mehta, raised in Jackson Heights, New York, goes back to the city of his birth, Bombay. A megalopolis of 18 million people crammed on a promontory of 170 square miles, jutting into the Arabian sea. His account of a two-year stay in Bombay produced an intimate but clear-eyed portrait of the city. He takes you to places where only a native-born son can tread. He introduces you to Bollywood movers and shakers, cops and criminals, dancing-girls and street urchins. The Bombay he presents in Maximum City can not be seen by tourists or understood by planners. It is part reportage and part travelouge, and a good read.
“Maximum City is, in all senses, a revelation… The stories are gripping…amid the squalor, there is wild, wild fun…Mehta’s tales, pounding along in the present tense, read like a modern Arabian Nights, only crueller, more poignant, more real… Part memoir, part journalism, part travelogue, Maximum City is a tour de force. Bombay is truly here lost ‹ and found.”" —The Times
The book can be purchased online from alibris.com or from amazon.com
You can find more from Mehta at his website here.
Or find it at your local library! http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56012594
my hometown being 3 hours away from the maximam city, there was no avoiding it…. NYC seems more calmer and quiet and less intense in comparison….
Thanks Sanmati. Have you read this book and what do you think of it?