He met his wife in this time, and had two children. Mehta left the city when he was 15, moving to New York, and spent quite a few of the intervening years wandering, living all over the world and occasionally feeling like a non-resident Indian. Maximum City is a book of many things, in the same way that Bombay is a city of many places, careers, and people. Suketu Mehta sets out to figure out why the riots in Bombay happened, why neighbors killed each other after being neighbors for so long.”After reading this book, I think I can evaluate these claims. The gangs are a concern in my parents’ lives.” And also, “This was the book I wanted to do for my thesis (in sociology). They’ve had friends with problems, real problems, with these people. “My parents talk about the gangsters in this book like they’re real people. But on top of that, there was much more going on. “This book will make you afraid of the city,” she warned. I was prewarned my girlfriend, who recommended the book to me, told me that her feelings on the city, by way of the book, when she made the recommendation. If it does nothing else, Maximum City convinces me of that fact. Although I read this slowly taking probably close to 30 hours to absorb it over a few week period, I was sorry to see it end - it could have gone on forever, the stories of Bombay are unlimited. The writing and Mehta's insights are remarkable, he is something of an artistic genius for his ability to give a sense of who a person is and what their life is like while keeping perspective on the big picture. In this way the vibrancy and immediacy of the "Maximum" city is imparted. He focuses on those living beyond the norm in the extreme, on the edge of life and death and freedom: gangsters, prostitutes, movie stars, directors, runaway teenage poets, Jainism. Suketu Mehta grew up in Bombay and moved to New York City when he was 15 - this book is about his return to city of birth as a young adult where he spent 2.5 years as a journalist attached to various people learning about their lives. It is the "City of No" in which resources are tight and daily basic existence is a struggle for millions. Bombay is the largest city on Earth and in parts the most densely populated with certain square miles containing over 1 million people.
Maximum City (2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist) is a remarkable book, I was hooked from the start and completely transported to another world.
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