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REVIEW OF MAXIMUM CITY: Bombay Lost and Found from Library Journal
Bombay-born Mehta, a screenplay (Mission Kashmir) and fiction writer, was transplanted to New York at age 14. In 1998, he returned to Bombay (now Mumbai) for two years and this is his account of the people who make up this mega-city (it will have 55 million inhabitants by 2015). The cover pictures a crush of passengers alongside a suburban train, and one wonders who they are. Mehta gets beneath their skin, so that they spring to life more vividly than any fiction character. He introduces the leader of a branch of the Shiv Sena, gangsters from Mumbai's underworld, a bargirl from the demimonde, slum dwellers, police officers, a movie producer, a struggling actor, and a 17-year-old runaway poet who lives on the pavement. Although his characters do not really represent a cross-section Mehta merely skims the middle and upper-middle classes his book is utterly fascinating. Essential for anyone wishing to understand present-day Mumbai. Ravi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL
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