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.
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