Gyan Prakash. Mumbai Fables

Gyan Prakash. Mumbai Fables, Harper Collins publisher India, Noida, India, 2011 (Pages 396, paperback)

Rating: 8/10

Anyone who loves or ever has loved Bombay/Mumbai will enjoy this book immensely. I did. 

While doing research on something else, I stumbled on this book in the net. Google Books offer an extensive preview of the book. Without leaving my computer screen, I must have read more than fifty pages. Captivated by the book, and disappointed that Google had not made the entire book available, I immediately ordered it online. 

On one hand, Mumbai Fables offers Bombay’s history from the Portuguese times till today, but the book is structured differently than a history book. It chooses certain defining highlights in Bombay’s history and devotes a chapter to each. You have chapters on the Gothic Parade in the south of Bombay, the Nanawati case and Blitz’s role in influencing the outcome, city’s shifting dominance from communists to Shiv Sena, and the planning and frustrations of building a twin city. All of them provide insights into the respective times. 

The book is extremely well written. The author is the professor of history at Princeton University. The language of the book is that of an outsider (not Indian English), but Gyan Prakash has worked with passion of an insider when researching and writing the book.

Did you know that Sir Jamshedji Jejeebhoy (whose name graces a school of art, a hospital and a flyover) was the king of the opium trade? That Bombay was a kind of ghetto city with Europeans living to the south of Churchgate and mill workers cramped in the Girangaon tenements? In fact the distribution of different languages and religions that existed 100 years ago (as mentioned in the book) still holds true: Parsis:Colaba,Taddeo, Dadar; Maharashtrian middle class: Girgaon, Thakurdwar, Shivaji Park; Gujratis, Jains: Kalbadevi, Bhuleshwar, Ghatkopar, Borivli; Muslims: Mohammad Ali Road, Bhendi Bazaar, Abdul Rehman street; south Indians: Matunga. We are all deeply connected to our roots. 

The story of Maharashtra’s chief minister clandestinely selling the Marine Drive land to a gang of builders: Dr Maker, Jolly group, Mittals, Tulsiani, Dalamal, Somani, and Raheja bring alive the skyscrapers on Nariman point. The plots were sold without tenders and without an auction. The court passed strictures and the chief minister resigned. Is this what would happen with current scams like 2G? History seems to repeat itself. 

If a fault must be found with the book, I would point to the chapter ‘Avenger on the Street’. It is devoted to Doga, Bombay’s fictitious superhero. I must admit I had not read those comics, not even heard about them. A long chapter with colour reproduction of the comics talking about Doga as seriously as if he were a historical figure seems out of place for an otherwise excellent book.

Verdict: Bombay residents and Bombay lovers must read this. If you wish to read the book without paying, read the hundred or so pages here. I am sure, like me, you will be tempted to order the book online after that.