Maximum City & Mumbai – book review

It has been some time since the last post in WittySparks, work being the primary contributor to the so-called absence! The monotony of work led to an interesting book – Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. Well, the book is a good read both in terms of its prose style and content.

The name sounds interesting isn’t it-Maximum City? And so is the book!

The title might give you a semblance of a thriller but the fact is that it is miles away from a thriller! Suketu Mehta in his book talks about Mumbai which is the Maximum City! The city of Mumbai means different things to different people, for some it is a hub of glamor (owing to Bollywood) and to some, it stands for peace and resilience.

The city has several facets like a kaleidoscope and this is what the book is all about.  Suketu Mehta tries to portray the city for what is it known for – Bollywood, Politics of the state of Maharashtra, the spirit of the city captured through its denizens among others. These layers like the scales of a snake have grown over the years and have slowly transformed the city into what it is today. The book takes various perspectives and tries to build the city through people who could be said to reflect these perspectives. And at the same time, it also gives the reader a sneak-peek into each of the perspective’s lifestyle.

Interesting to note is the stand of the author which is that of an observer which is interesting given the fact that he engages with each of these facets and demystifies each of them to the reader.

Flipping through the initial pages reader would be compelled to take a sneak peek into the bio scope and get a glimpse of Mumbai as portrayed by Mehta ! In the process the reader would see the book meander through interesting nuggets of information interspersed with a certain silken touch of prose!

The terms and style of writing are refreshing, to say the least, and definitely engages the reader. Going by the coverage of the subject, it would be proper to say that the author has tried to take the bioscope approach to give a concise and comprehensive experience to the reader whereby the city of Mumbai is recreated from different viewpoints, all unique and interesting!