Pages: 348 (17 B/W Illustrations)
From the Flap
When King Charles II of England married Princess Catherine de Braganza of Portugal in 1661, he
received as part of his dowry the isles of Bom Bahia, the Good Bay. Reclaimed from the sea, these
would become the modern city of Bombay. A marriage of affluence and abject poverty, where a
grey concrete jungle is the backdrop to a heady potpourri of ethnic, linguistic and religious
subcultures, Bombay, renamed Mumbai after the goddess Mumbadevi, defies definition.
Bombay, Meri Jaan, comprising poems and prose pieces by some of the biggest names
in literature, in addition to cartoons, photographs, a song and a Bombay Duck recipe, tries to
capture the spirit of this great metropolis.
Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, Dilip Chitre, Saadat Hasan Manto, V.S. Naipaul,
Khushwant Singh and Busybee, 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 womens 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.
Introduction: The Live City
Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernandes
Once Bombay lodges itself in your eye, youre doomed to a lifetime of tunnel vision. Exploring the
damp delights of Brussels one morning not so long ago, we made our way to the Cinquantenaire, a
triumphal arch erected to commemorate Belgiums golden jubilee. We peered at its drizzly outlines
for a few seconds and almost simultaneous
