Thursday, January 24, 2008

Where and exactly how do values, culture, upbringing shade our reactions? After weeks of detailed reviews which showed much work had been done on the backstory- on blasts, building crashes, land grabbing deals, mill redevelopment and suchlike- I finally mailed across the definitive Mumbai book. Sheer scale and fine writing, nothing that captures the pulse- the pace, the dirt, the grit and adrenalin, quite like this one does. But how will someone far older, genteel and refined, raised in another land, react to these lines? Particularly the lissome, completely fragile Mona Lisa Patel? So sad, so beautiful, and your heart could weep.

7 comments:

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

I can't wait to have a copy!!!
It's good to educate others, even those that are in it, shows a tremendous amount of will and perspective!!
Have a great thursday!!
Elizabeth :)

austere said...

Suketu Mehta's Maximum City that I mailed to a friend is a stunner of a book, but I wouldn't want you to read it, too gory.

AmitL said...

Ohhh..I thought you wrote a Mumbai book,Austy..

Maximum City- I remember going through that tome,when I was on my three-month holiday in 2006.It was awesome in part,and,totally gory in others..I guess I did skip some pages.

BookClover said...

First of all good luck!!
Second...well, very good question but I think I am still looking for the answer myself...

manuscrypts said...

vidhu vinod chopra screamed invasion of privacy after the book was published... was a good read - the book and the controversy :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Aust,
Guess what even I thought you were secretly writing a book without telling me :)

austere said...

Nothing like a controversy to keep a book moving, yes?
I actually had someone on the blog tell me, when I was gushing abt it earlier, that a) he didn't write the book b) all the incidents were fictional.

What ho!