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Bombay or Mumbai nonetheless holds that standing for different causes as nicely. It is probably the one metropolis in India the place you may see Gothic spires and glass skyscrapers within the blink of an eye fixed. It is the one metropolis that by no means sleeps, but harbours thousands and thousands of desires. Bombay is evidently a banker’s treasure trove; it’s equally a author’s muse.
In The Only City: Bombay in Eighteen Stories, varied writers deliver out the contradictions of this bustling megapolis. “What we’ve right here, in these pages,” writes Anindita Ghose, in her editor’s notice, “is a group of Bombay moments.”
Intimacy in crowded areas
These moments are clear to a Mumbaikar virtually immediately. In Amrita Mahale’s story ‘Aai-Tai’, Sayli, who works in AI annotation, bumps into her boss, Ananya, on the road the place she lives. Ananya says she is shocked that she has by no means seen Sayli earlier than, regardless of being her neighbour. But Sayli is aware of higher: in a sprawling, unequal metropolis, the poor battle for visibility.
In Diksha Basu’s ‘Bollywood, Baby’, an aspiring actor wears a costume that’s price virtually half her hire. While her father stays hopeful that she’s going to return residence to a “actual job” some day, she does all she will to make a mark within the glamour world.
In Ghose’s glorious ‘Normal Neighbours’, a cheerful couple, Mahesh and Aparna, strikes right into a glitzy residence. Aparna slips into her new life simply: sipping vegetable juice, going for laps within the pool, and elevating glasses of wine at events. But she turns into nervous and snappy when she realises that not simply crushed linen garments, however accomplice swapping too is a fad for the tremendous wealthy.
Author and editor Anindita Ghose
Sometimes, total tales are Bombay moments. Overcrowded trains spell discomfort and even demise for some, however in Prathyush Parasuraman’s gripping ‘Two Bi Two’, they supply event for sexual gratification. This is a metropolis the place small shanties provide little to no room, so intimacy spills into the practice and turns into a public act; part of the literal Bombay journey. There is voyeurism as nicely — bored or curious males look on, knowingly however silently, on the two males’s our bodies in rhythm till they’re spat out of the practice. In ‘The Hon. Secy’, Kersi Khambatta turns on a regular basis residence fights right into a wildly entertaining story filled with humour and over-the-top drama.
The metropolis as witness
Bombay will be too romanticised as a metropolis of upward mobility and hope. But as Yogesh Maitreya writes, “Mumbai is [also] the graveyard of many, many desires — desires that dare to create a fusion of affection and justice.” Jeet Thayil’s ‘Your Meat in My Hands’ plunges the reader into the underbelly of town, the place the will for meat turns into a demise sentence. He strips the numbness from routine newspaper headlines, exposing the uncooked, brutal horror behind them with visceral readability. This is a Bombay that makes you shudder and squirm.
In his debut brief story, ‘Where The Lights Never Go Out’, Jairaj Singh additionally steps into ruthless darkish locations. While Thayil’s characters command that world, Singh’s characters go in gingerly, with loads of curiosity, somewhat starvation, and a few concern.
The assortment spans Mumbai — from the southernmost tip of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, to Malabar Hills, Marine Drive, Dadar, Mulund, Sion, all the best way to Andheri East. They revolve round dreamers, hustlers, schemers, and lovers — every bringing out a slice of life in an ever-changing metropolis. Amid pages brimming with restlessness, Chirodeep Chaudhuri’s images seize moments of stillness and quiet.
As with any bold assortment that seeks to deliver out the complexities of a metropolis via very totally different voices — from Shanta Gokhale and Ranjit Hoskote to Prayaag Akbar and Raghu Karnad — just some tales are actually memorable. But even the place the writing doesn’t shine, Bombay or Mumbai does — because the beating coronary heart of the narrative.
radhika.s@thehindu.co.in
