Maximum City: A Review.

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Maximum City: A Review.

By: Karthik :+: Under: Books
On: ⋅ September 3, 2007 ⋅

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Maximum City by Suketu Mehta.

As someone who spent a year growing up in Bombay (It was Bombay then), visiting often and having relatives there, much of this book read like Cliffs Notes for me. The few Bollywood Gangster movies that I have managed to catch over the years filled in whatever actually living there didn’t.

I also noticed that apart from a few details which are Bombay-specific, most of the themes are applicable to India in general. Reading about the way cops treat suspects, slums, poverty, red tape, politics etc. might have had a Bombayish spin to it, but all of that information was not new or particularly interesting to me.

As I read the book, I wondered why Sukethu had decided to follow the lives of these people, people whom you would not interact with or know in your day to day life in Bombay. The answer is buried in a paragraph in the last chapter of the book. I wish he had included that paragraph as a part of the introduction.

He goes on to present the rough edges of bombay, Gangsters, Bar dancers, Film Makers populate an assortment of characters, who as he puts it, have low moral values. The book is filled with sensationalism, repeatedly making you say “What the…” and it can get very monotonous. I wish he had spent a few pages writing about the Mumbaikar spirit of not letting anyone stop their daily lives. This was well-evident in the aftermath of the Train bombings.

As I crossed page 200, I was forced to come to the conclusion that the book was written for a western audience. Sukethu, I believe is picking out dramatic events in the city and serving it on a platter for the west to consume. It is like the TV producers from the west, who always manage to spend an extra few seconds to capture the slums of India, but do not bother thinking about the slums in America. He is pandering.

He also spends a great deal of time on BS from those he profiles. Often times, I have come across friends / relatives, who will talk about their aspirations, their plans for the future, with no solid intentions of ever pursuing them. We called this “passing time” and I get a feeling that Sukethu could not decipher the difference between it and a sincere commitment to change, well, that or he decided it would add weight to his already massive book.

There are a few good parts to the book. Although he name checks certain famous people across various professions, he does not hold them up on a pedestal or fawn over them as if they were demi-Gods; he tells it like he sees it. A lot of his theories were articulated well, I never had to spend time connecting the dots, because he did it for me.

His take on the rent act transforming itself into multiple forms of evil, historical details on Bombay’s immigrant population, on its smuggling trade and the perennial overcrowding, although deducible by logic, were well presented. The “theories” about Navi Mumbai, city planners and incubators for bad elements were well thought out, although I am sure that they will pass for gossip and just that.

Would I recommend this book to anyone?

I doubt it. A lot of similarly-themed movies have managed to “educate” Bollywood fans. Besides, and while I usually endorse “reading the book” over taking the lazy route with the movie, his writing style makes you wonder why you bought the book in the first place, so I’ll make an exception here. Thank goodness I borrowed it from someone, since it’s not something I’d keep on my shelves.

Like I concluded on SM, I am left wondering if Maximum City was just a collection of stories left over from a movie script. I’m not impressed, at all.

Here are some other bloggers who have reviewed this book.(1,2,3,4)

Discussion

7 comments for “Maximum City: A Review.”

1: University Update - West 8 - Maximum City: A Review. | September 3, 2007, 11:47 pm | Direct Link

[...] the Webmaster Maximum City: A Review. » This Summary is from an article posted at uber desi dot com on Monday, September 03, 2007 [ [...]

2: BPSK | September 4, 2007, 12:01 am | Direct Link

Hey, interesting point of view. Being an NRI and out of Mumbai for several years, I found the book really interesting. However, I can see how you would see the sections on the dancers, the cops etc. to be sensationalism.

As you probably know, Maximum City is part of what is called the “Bombay Trilogy”: the other two being “Shantaram” and “Sacred Games”

What are your views on those two?

-BPSK

3: Karthik | September 4, 2007, 11:48 am | Direct Link

As you probably know, Maximum City is part of what is called the â€œBombay Trilogyâ€: the other two being â€œShantaramâ€ and â€œSacred Gamesâ€

BPSK: I am aware of the other two books, but have not found the time to read them. They are on my reading list and I will have my thoughts up soon.

4: Karthik | September 4, 2007, 11:51 am | Direct Link

Neale, Tamasha: A lot of what you read in MC have been made into movies, Gangsters, Bar dancers, politicians, name it and there is a movie that deals with one or all of similarly attributed characters.

For someone who does not know too much about Bombay, for that matter even people who have not manged to move with the fringe crowd that makes up the entirety of this book, these details could have been pulled out his rear end. Hence the as good as fiction.

Hope that helps.

5: brown | September 4, 2007, 12:19 pm | Direct Link

Hi Karthik,

I followed your post from SM, I agree with everything you say. I personally like to echo what I said on SM, I have lived a fair share of my life in Bombay and to be honest some parts of the book resonate with me. I am no literary expert but like to consider myself well versed in the ways of Bombay and I feel Mr. Mehta comes severely short in capturing the essence of the city. The parts about the dance bars are unnecessary and the chapters in the book feel disjointed.
For me the book felt like Mr. Mehta’s attempt on showcasing which high profile people he knew in Bombay. For me the essence of Bombay is how easy it is for an outsider like me to meld into the city, you can’t have an elitist view of the city as it is as much the city of the working class. I personally enjoyed the food at the stations and gomantak restaurants as much as I did at the Olive’s and Zenji’s. For me the city is inclusive which I feel Suketu failed to capture. The book felt like an agenda from the beginning without an honest discourse.

6: dilettante | September 4, 2007, 2:08 pm | Direct Link

It is like the TV producers from the west, who always manage to spend an extra few seconds to capture the slums of India, but do not bother thinking about the slums in America. He is pandering.

Ummm (as I mentioned on SM) I was looking to be ‘pandered’ to…eg feeling a bit a backlash against the ‘model minority’ eg studies of crack dealers in the US ,by Desi grad students, as if everyone in India lived out the plots/lifestyles from Bollywood films…stupid, I know, but it happens. I guess I got my comeuppance when he goes the extra mile with his over the top explanations of Feces as used by African drug dealers in the book. Facile I say, because he starts the book off on how his own precious/ rich “American” kids are ill literally from the sh**** water, so I didn’t see how fecal projectiles would have thought to be an effective weapon against acclimated locals … eg no shock factor. Never mind the relative ‘fire power’ vs guns with bullets- that I assume law enforcement officials have access to.

Anyway I would like to visit India one day, but could you explain what point he is trying to make (if there is one) about Delhi vs Mumbai? He wrote several times that ,”after all Mumbai was not New Delhi”…?

7: Karthik | September 7, 2007, 11:22 pm | Direct Link

I feel Mr. Mehta comes severely short in capturing the essence of the city. The parts about the dance bars are unnecessary and the chapters in the book feel disjointed.

To me it was very confusing, he seemed to visit and revisit places and it got irritating.

For me the city is inclusive which I feel Suketu failed to capture. The book felt like an agenda from the beginning without an honest discourse.

I agree, else there would not be such an influx of population from everywhere.

Anyway I would like to visit India one day,

You should, it is a very beautiful and diverse country. Amazing sights and scenes as long as you are with the right people, it can also be cheap.

but could you explain what point he is trying to make (if there is one) about Delhi vs Mumbai? He wrote several times that ,â€after all Mumbai was not New Delhiâ€â€¦?

As one of friends put it a long time ago, people in Delhi are relaxed. They will drive an hour to get food that they like. In Bombay people will get whatever they can find and move on with their day. Hope that sheds some light into the difference.