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 women’s 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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto is a poet and journalist. His first book of poems Asylum was published in 2004. He is also the author of Surviving Women published by Penguin India. He lives in Mumbai.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Naresh Fernandes
The author Naresh Fernandes is editor-in-chief of Time Out India. A renowned journalist, he has previously worked with the Times of India and the Associated Press in Mumbai and with the Wall Street Journal in New York. His writings have appeared in numerous national and international newspapers and magazines. He is the co-editor of the anthology, Bombay Meri Jaan.The photo research was done over a long period of time by Pramod Kapoor, who is a collector of historical records and photographs and a publisher by profession. He has previously compiled pioneering books like the Unforgettable Maharajas; India: Then and Now; and will soon be launching Witness to Life and Freedom: Margaret Bourke-White in India. He compiled the pathbreaking illustrated book, New Delhi: Making of a Capital, which is a bestseller.The photo researcher, Chirodeep Chaudhuri has worked in the Sunday Observer, the Outlook Group and at Time Out Mumbai. Many of Chirodeep’s projects on Mumbai have been exhibited around the country and abroad; and his work has been included in exclusive books on the city. His work is also a part of the permanent collections of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Japan) and the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA).
There are no reviews yet.