I had a very preconceived notion about this man. Thought he was bald. Wrote a book on Bombay , that oh so many damsels and princes have already written about. What was to be so interesting in a person who was Just Another America-Returned Nobody. Truly , seeing him on Page 3 was rather tiring . People pay to get on Page 3 , the poorer go naked.
A writer doing that was for me , something preposterous.
Until now.
Browsing through the makeshift stalls in Kolkata’s Park Street, I find myself a copy of his book “Maximum City : Bombay Lost and Found”.
‘ So this was the book ‘ , I say, ‘ Lets get this bastard, then ‘.
“Bhaiya, 280 rupees, bhaiya” , claims the shopkeeper.
‘ Teri to , pirated copy ke liye itna ? 120 se jyada nahi dunga. Yahan naya huun to kya pocket ka faluda banayega ? ‘
‘ Bhaiya , ye copy kahin nahin milti hai. Subah Subah jhooth nahin bolunga , lekin iski copy kisi ke paas bhi 2-3 se jyaada nahin hain. Bahut demand hai bhaiya. ‘ , he defends his price saying that.
I think for a while , not about the price , but about what he says . Bahut demand mein hain. That too 5 years after being published. Big effing deal. There must be something in this . Surely , gazillions of people can’t be wrong. I get back on the price.
‘ 125 dunga bas. Ab ke baad muuh mat kholiyo . Mereko der ho rahi hain , train pakadna hain. Mere upar bhi raham karo. ‘
He budges after some initial apprehensions. I am happy, he seems happy too. I am fucked. I should have said 100 rupees.
Fuck.
I then go to another seller. This time buy more stuff outta there. The seller notices the book in my polythene packet.
‘ Bhaiya, Suketu kitna mein liya? ‘
‘120 mein, sala mamu banaya mujhe . ‘
‘ Nahin bhaiya, sab thik hain. Iska demand puchiye mat . ‘ Same stuff he says, this time though I am confirmed that this book has a certian mystery to it.
On train and about to reach Bolpur. Fuck! The Saraighat Express makes the belly go crazy. My whole body is fucked by the body roll of the coaches. But I only realize that now, a full 2 hours after the train has left the Howrah Terminus .
It was only because I was reading easily the best of literature I have ever come across in my life. A real nonfictional description of Bombay , so vivid , so dirty, and so compelling , it made me the King who listened to the 1001 Tales of the Arabian Nights- in bliss , in awe , and numbed by the beauty of the narration. I was wrong . Suketu is a minor deity now. Slowly, he is getting closer to God.
Maximum City traces the life of the ordinary and the extraordinary in Bombay. How everything is not-so-spicy in the City of Dreams. From ventures with the Underworld, and hit men from D-Company and Chhota Rajan, days and nights with Bar Dancers, friendships with Producers and Scriptwriters, and tete-a-tete with the the most feared Police Officers in India, and the Modern Maratha Bhagwan , Bal Thackeray ,and yet being his own self, Suketu writes about the place where he grew up in vivid detail. How he had a flawed homecoming from the USA, and was visibly shaken and stirred by the happenings around him , and yet feeling calm from seeing the very aura of the soul that lies within Mumbai. Reports and interviews tell that he was so much into writing every single thing in utmost detail that he was nearly killed by two gangsters.
The piece is garish at parts , gives us the moments when he himself was flawed, dirty and violent and utterly revealing to the core, and yet compels us to sympathize with Mumbai .
It’s only been three days that I have returned from Kolkata, but I have finished this book in its entirety , reading some of its sections, almost 3 days, because of the sheer style of his narration.
I am yet to recover from the grand feeling I have attained out of reading this morceau extraordinaire de littérature.
Let’s all hail for Suketu Mehta, arguably the most happening non-fictional Indian storyteller , ever.
Penned Shit 