Ok, here are the two paragraphs where the Bombay/Mumbai issue comes to the forefront. Mehta's arguments will need to be verified and checked, but together they do offer a lot that will be new to non-Bombayites. It does have quite a few moments of diasporic writerly Romanticism (show-offy self-reflexivity), but it also has a lot of concrete information about unromantic things like architecture, the economics of the city, the politics of water, the changing dynamics of labor, and immigration to the city. What will its staying power be? Is it just this year's Desi publishing sensation, or is it going to be something you can come back to, and maybe teach from?Īs an early general assessment, I do think this book will be of value as a source of pretty solid ideas and information about Bombay. Pennathur's criticisms prompted me to read past the first 50 pages of Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City, partly in the interest of finding out the exact quote.īut it's also true that it's when you see real criticism of a book that you start to think seriously about it.
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