There was something about the high rises that appealed to her particularly. Sometimes, she�d wonder whether those high rises had a heart since they were a witness to so much happening around. She would look at them, and just ponder deeply about their existence, her existence, and where she belonged in this naked world. She continued contemplating and looking at those buildings when her eyes rested on the most simple, dilapidated one where Alex Ford worked. She always felt an undiscovered, and unjustified attraction towards that building. Even though it was a high rise, this building was designed differently and was in no way similar to one of those typical architectural skyscrapers that filled the whole of New York. There was something special about this that no words or adjectives could substantiate� The tip of the building resembled a cone that went steeper and sharper towards its vertex. Whenever she felt exhausted from the day�s work or the times when she�d be losing her motivation to slog , she�d just be staring at the cone, trying to decipher its meaning. Her eyes would move in oscillatory, linear and circulatory movements and she�d notice the caricatures even more minutely. What amazed her the most was that no one design was identical to the other. Somewhere they appeared a little cylindrical, and in some places, elliptical. Looking at them, and studying them deeply, Shan could say that each of them had a story to tell.

Riots and After in Mumbai provides a synoptic record of events in Mumbai, focusing essentially on the history of riots in the city. Using this framework, it attempts to understand the sociopolitical and cultural realities of present-day Mumbai through a collection of narratives of the people affected by the communal riots of 1992–93. Author Meena Menon uses a novel approach, combining historical records from the pre-Independence era (1893–1945) and personal interviews of both Muslims and Hindus living in the city. It also looks into the political manipulations that ordinary people of both communities alike are subjected to by the ruling powers and political parties.

Starting from the catastrophic floods and terrorist attacks of recent years, Prakash reaches back to the sixteenth-century Portuguese conquest to reveal the stories behind Mumbai's historic journey. Examining Mumbai's role as a symbol of opportunity and reinvention, he looks at its nineteenth-century development under British rule and its twentieth-century emergence as a fabled city on the sea. Different layers of urban experience come to light as he recounts the narratives of the Nanavati murder trial and the rise and fall of the tabloid Blitz, and Mumbai's transformation from the red city of trade unions and communists into the saffron city of Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena. Starry-eyed planners and elite visionaries, cynical leaders and violent politicians of the street, land sharks and underworld dons jostle with ordinary citizens and poor immigrants as the city copes with the dashed dreams of postcolonial urban life and lurches into the seductions of globalization. --

Mumbai is an ever-evolving city, bustling and brimming, never sleeping for a wink. But the past four decades brought upheavals of great magnitude that shaped the city as we know today. Marred by communal riots, gang wars and terrorism, the spirit of Mumbai has emerged indomitable every single time. Born and raised in the lanes of Bombay 3, this is the story of Jagan Kumar who dreams of being a television journalist and changing the world. But once he achieves this, he realises that television journalism has lost its path, now afflicted with sensationalism, corruption and bias. As a crime reporter, he comes across various unscrupulous means that law enforcement agencies adopt to combat organised crime syndicates. He is shocked to witness interdepartmental rivalry that often jeopardises public security. Disenchanted, in conflict with his conscience and confused about his calling, he is about to quit when something happens that changes the course of his life. Bombay 3 begins from the bylanes of old Bombay of the seventies and then takes you to Mosul in ISIS's Iraq of 2014 and finally to the streets of Bangkok where the underworld of Mumbai has spread its tentacles. A fast-paced thriller, it answers certain questions about life in Mumbai and raises a few new ones.

*One of NPR's "Books We Love 2021"* "'I came to see the mountains as an outpouring of our modern lives,' Roy writes, 'of the endless chase for our desires to fill us.' Readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be drawn to this harrowing portrait." —Publishers Weekly "Castaway Mountain deserves every accolade. A stunning achievement." —Kiran Desai, Booker Prize Winner, author of Inheritance of Loss. All of Mumbai’s possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountains are covered in a faint smog from trash fires. Over time, as wealth brought Bollywood knock offs, fast food and plastics to Mumbaikars, a small, forgotten community of migrants and rag-pickers came to live at the mountains’ edge, making a living by re-using, recycling and re-selling. Among them is Farzana Ali Shaikh, a tall, adventurous girl who soon becomes one of the best pickers in her community. Over time, her family starts to fret about Farzana’s obsessive relationship to the garbage. Like so many in her community, Farzana, made increasingly sick by the trash mountains, is caught up in the thrill of discovery—because among the broken glass, crushed cans, or even the occasional dead baby, there’s a lingering chance that she will find a treasure to lift her family’s fortunes. As Farzana enters adulthood, her way of life becomes more precarious. Mumbai is pitched as a modern city, emblematic of the future of India, forcing officials to reckon with closing the dumping grounds, which would leave the waste pickers more vulnerable than ever. In a narrative instilled with superstition and magical realism, Saumya Roy crafts a modern parable exploring the consequences of urban overconsumption. A moving testament to the impact of fickle desires, Castaway Mountain reveals that when you own nothing, you know where true value lies: in family, community and love. Interior map illustration copyright (c) Jake Coolidge

An experimental novel that blurs the boundaries between historical fiction, memoir and travelogue, Wanderers, All is the story of Murlidhar Khedekar whose life plays out against the birth of a new nation in the first half of the twentieth century.Having migrated to Bombay from a small Konkan village, a young Khedekar attempts to find a place in the vibrant Marathi theatre scene of that era. When he fails to realize his ambitions as an actor, he gradually transitions from a clerk to a wrestler and eventually, a cop in the Bombay City Police. Providing a sharp - and often amusing - contrast to his life story is the travelogue of his great granddaughter, who sets out on a solo road trip across the Goan coastline, wandering across its beaches, parties and villages.Seamlessly alternating between two eras, and across Portuguese and British rule in India, Wanderers, All throws up questions of divided loyalty, belonging and ownership, of borders between humans and countries. Combining elements of theatre, travel and politics, it is a novel about the journeys we embark on - the purposeful and the aimless.

Based on his own extraordinary life, Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram is a mesmerizing novel about a man on the run who becomes entangled within the underworld of contemporary Bombay—the basis for the Apple + TV series starring Charlie Hunnam. “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.” An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart.