Noah Davis Talks to Mumbai's Master Chronicler, Suketu Mehta, About the Past, Present and Future of the CITY He Loves
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CITYCITY NOAH DAVIS TALKS TO MUMBAI’s MASTER CHRONICLER, SUKETU MEHTA, ABOUT THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE CITY HE LOVES SUKETU MEHTA / THE INDIA ISSUE 87 OPEN SKIES: One of the great suc- I told my publisher to fire their sales OPEN SKIES: How possible is upward cesses of Maximum City it is that it force and just hire these kids because mobility? What happens to the kid painted an amazing portrait of a city they bring the bookshop to the cus- who is selling your book to you for that is so hard to define. How accurate tomer. [Laughs] 200 rupees? do you think that portrait still is? OPEN SKIES: You talk a lot about the MEHTA: I’ve traced a number of peo- MEHTA: A city like Bombay keeps romanticism in the city. The hopers. ple in my book who make it out of the shifting constantly. Rahul Mehro- The dreamers. Is it still a romantic slums and into the tenements. That’s tra, an architect friend of mine who place for you? the dream: to go from a shack to a teaches at Harvard and is the most structure made of brick. Sometimes accurate observer of urban Bombay, MEHTA: It is, but you know, every they move back to the shack. When says that when he goes to Cambridge time I go there people predict the they go into the flats, they often find after six months, basically nothing death of Bombay. That never changes. it really anonymous. The slums act has changed. If he returns to Bombay I’m going there this winter and I’m like villages in the city. in 30 days, the sidewalk outside his sure the city is at imminent risk of It baffles because people are still office has been torn up and there is a death. [Laughs] Now, of course, there coming. They might not be living new building in front. are horrible things about the city. It’s on the island city but they might be The physical structure changes very wrong in so many ways. One of living in Thane, in New Bombay, in dramatically and that has been ac- the worst is the overdevelopment of Vashi, in all these new areas that celerating in the last few years, but the central city. What’s been changing were farmlands 10 years ago. I think that the essential contours now is its growth into the hinterland. I With the building of the new inter- of the urban forces – especially the think areas like New Bombay and be- national airport, I think there is going political energies, the dynamism of yond will go on and be sprawling like to be an urban cluster around there. the city, and the different metropoli- Los Angeles. People are still dreaming, and they tan stories – are still the same. But there are still shady nooks and have more time to dream because alleyways in the city. Whenever I go the commutes become much longer. OPEN SKIES: Is the book popular in back I know where to go, like the area When you spend two hours getting Mumbai? around the Gujarati Ghetto in central to work on the train, there is plenty of Bombay, and even many of the lanes of time to dream. MEHTA: It’s being pirated widely all Bandra, which are tree shaded. I look across the streets. I take that as a com- for the relics of that ghost town. Every OPEN SKIES: It sounds like there’s pliment. If these guys – who are ex- year when I go back it’s a different city plenty of ambition in Mumbai. tremely selective about what books to from the one it was the previous year. publish – will rip me off, then I know The change is the only constant. MEHTA: Bombay has some of the I’ve made it in Bombay. Thirty per cent of the city now is most innovative capitalists I’ve ever Once I was in a taxi on my way to North India, so there is a tremendous met. It is fundamentally an entre- the airport and it stopped at a red light. pushback against them on the part of preneurial city. What matters to the These kids came over with a stack of Shiv Sena. People used to be against hawker, who is selling his bhelpuri on pirated books and mine was on top. I Gujaratis, the communists, the South the street, is his little part of the side- asked what the book was about. They Indians. Now, it’s the North Indians. walk. He will fight to the death to pro- said, “Oh, all of Bombay is in this book.” They have a new bogeyman. tect that little piece of the sidewalk. I asked how much and then they But all these peasants who come in People respect that. It’s the same said, “400 rupees,” I said, “400? You from the north have exactly the same thing with the multinational execu- know I’m the author of this book.” impossible dream that the previous tives that come there. “Fine, if you are the author you can generations did. As long as that’s the It is a commercial city par excel- have it for 200.” I love the entrepre- constant, as long as people still want lence, and no other city in India has neurship of these kids, and that still to come to the city, it will remain replaced it. Bangalore hasn’t but it’s stays the same in the city. vibrant and striving. trying. Delhi hasn’t. Bombay remains 88 THE INDIA ISSUE / SUKETU MEHTA SUKETU MEHTA / THE INDIA ISSUE 89 the most open city in India because it The dream is really to make enough city. Westerners in Bangalore can live city’s local Muslim leaders refused to MEHTA: Yes, it was very, very sur- MEHTA: That’s a very accurate de- has taken in my ancestors, it’s taken in money first to send back to the village like they do in an American suburb, bury the bodies of terrorists. They said, prising to me. I think it happened for scription of the country and of Bom- the British, it has taken in the Portu- and second to get a slightly bigger and but they haven’t come to India to live “These people are not Muslims.” The a couple of reasons. One is that there bay. I tried to do that in my book. guese. Now it’s taking in Beharis and better house than the one you have right in Minneapolis. bombings had precisely the opposite was a great deal of interest in India, The city operates at a heightened vol- people from UP. These are extremely now. That dream continues all the way It’s much more expensive than effect on the city, actually, as the Hin- and in cities in general, around the ume; it’s a shouted city. My book has poor people who are not very well to the top. The Ambanis have this man- Delhi, Bangalore, or any other city, du leaders and Muslims came together turn of the century. Bombay is em- everything. People who can stick educated, but it still remains open to sion, this epic folly that cost a billion and they know this. But they still and said, “We are all Bombayites.” blematic of a group of cities in the out for the torture and riot chapter them. These new people are as entre- dollars. I was in a taxi driven by a man keep coming because it has a very It’s gratifying to see that the city has developing world like São Paulo, like then get the pleasure sections, ones about preneurial as the people who came from Bihar and he was driving past this vibrant expat scene, and you can walk matured. There are tensions, but no Lagos, like Jakarta. Most people don’t Bollywood, and ones about love in the before. That’s another thing that dis- building. I asked him what he thought of around, especially compared to Delhi. political party or outside force has been have a clue about the lives of people city. Anything you can say about Bom- tinguishes Bombay and gives it its it, whether he begrudged the Ambanis Western women particularly find able to exploit them to set ordinary peo- in these cities but they want to. There bay is true and false simultaneously. manic energy. for flaunting their wealth. He said, “No, Bombay much safer than any other ple upon each other. I think it’s because is an epic migration from city to city It’s a great city. It’s a beautiful city no, it’s the law of Bombay. He came here Indian city. They can eat alone in a of the power of the dream. People want all around the world. People in New by the sea. And yes, it’s an ugly city and he built his building, so that’s all restaurant without being harassed. to move there and make enough money York need to understand the life of with hellish conditions for people fine.” But the driver did say he didn’t like to send a little back to the village while someone living in a slum in Bombay, living in there. It has rich and poor. the colour of the house. That was classic. OPEN SKIES: This may be an impossible keeping body and soul together in the big if for no other reason than that the The shock of Bombay is the shock of THE CONSTANT [Laughs] People in Bombay won’t mind question to answer but is there anything city.