Bombay, Meri Jaan: Writings on Mumbai

Front Cover
Jerry Pinto, Naresh Fernandes
Penguin Books India, 2003 - History - 348 pages

One of the Guardian's 10 Best Books set in Mumbai

An invaluable literary guide to the mercurial city of Mumbai

A heady potpourri of ethnic, linguistic and religious subcultures, Bombay, renamed Mumbai after the goddess Mumbadevi, defies definition. But through a remarkable collection of poems and prose pieces by giants of literature, in addition to cartoons, photographs, a song and a Bombay Duck recipe, Bombay, Meri Jaan tries to capture the spirit of this great metropolis.

Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, Dilip Chitre, Saadat Hasan Manto, V.S. Naipaul and Khushwant Singh, among others, write about aspects of the city: the high-rise apartments and the slums; camaraderie and isolation in the crowded chawls; bhelpuri on the beach and cricket in the gully; the women's compartment of a local train; encounter cops who battle the underworld; the jazz culture of the sixties; the monsoon floods; the Shiv Sena; the cinema halls; the sea.

Vibrant, engaging and provocative, this is an anthology as rich and varied as the city it celebrates.

 

Contents

Where I Live
15
Three Uneasy Pieces
28
The Cult of the Golden Bull
62
The Great Water Wars
84
The View from Chinchpokli
99
Dekho Dekho Art Deco
112
In the Gully
126
War Comes to Bombay
143
Talking Heads
207
Son Eat Your Fill
217
The Rage of the Marathi Manus
235
Doongaji House
248
Licensed to Kill
268
The Bhendibazar Gharana
283
Morning You Play Different Evening You Play Different
307
Mumbai
330

A Little Paperwork
161
The Rajdhani Express to Bombay
189
Acknowledgements
346
Copyright

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