The Clear Screen Potential of Suketu Mehta’s ‘Maximum City’

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the Indian government had arm-twisted streaming companies Netflix and Amazon Prime into not proceeding with a few films or shows that, New Delhi argued, would show India in a poor light. One show mentioned in the piece was a Netflix adaptation of Suketu Mehta’s “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.”

As the 2004 book does not focus on the Indian federal government, or on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it’s possible that New Delhi was more uncomfortable with Netflix’s choice of director. Director Anurag Kashyap is well known for his criticism of Narendra Modi’s government. But whatever the reason was, and regardless of whether the report is accurate or not, I’d argue that Suketu Mehta’s book should be made into a show, and thus it will be a shame if does not happen.

“Maximum City” is one of the best books on contemporary India I have read. I would rate it on par with gems like Ravi Agarwal’s “India Connected” (on how the internet and smartphones have changed Indian society), Rajat Ubhaykar’s “Truck de India” (on the life of Indian truck drivers), Supriya Sharma’s “A Village Votes” (a series of texts on the political life of one Indian village), Mayank Austen Soofi’s “Nobody Can Love You More” (on the life of Delhi prostitutes), and Anurag Tripathi’s “Dera Sacha Sauda” (an investigation into the crimes of an Indian holy man). This is not an exhaustive list, but Mehta’s work belongs among the ranks of great books about India. 

What do all of these books have in common? They focus on a chunk of life, rather than trying to describe the world in its entirety. In my opinion, a book about everything tends to end up being about nothing. It is much wiser to take a person, or a small community, or a more narrow process, and present it as an exemplification of wider changes or deeper truths. These are like a photograph, a moment frozen in time, where every part of the image, every corner and hue, is deeply analyzed – rather than being a long movie that just sweeps through various subjects. 

In the case of “Maximum City,” this picture is that of Bombay (now Mumbai), India’s largest port metropolis. And just like in the instances I gave above, Mehta does not try to write the whole history of the city; it is actually not a history at all, but rather a summary of the changes that occurred in the last few decades. The book also does not claim to cover every aspect of the city’s life. Rather, each chapter is a picture in itself: viewing the city through its policemen and gangsters, filmmakers and local politicians, prostitutes and pious Jain monks. 

Another crucial aspect that “Maximum City” and the other texts listed above have in common is that they do not put the author ahead of the heroes of the story. They are not an endless list of “I did,” “I discovered,” “I concluded.” A good reported book makes the people described in the story its protagonists, rather than the author. 

It is hard for me to decide which coverage of a chosen group by the author should receive my personal trophy, but I think these should be the “black-collar workers,” the criminals. Mehta dug so deep into Mumbai’s underground that its representatives shared stories of their crimes with him. “I am sick of meeting murderers,” he wrote at a certain point. But thanks to this, his depiction of the gangsters became so vivid that it included the personal life of a criminal who murdered many people but, being accustomed to living in an extended family, was afraid to sleep in his house alone.

If there is any political risk here, it is more on a local level. Mehta talks not only about sensitive issues like the Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai but also the regional party that holds the reins of power in the metropolis: Shiv Sena. The author interviewed rank-and-file members of the party as well as its highly controversial leader, the late Bal Thackeray. 

Shiv Sena is a party known for its “sons-of-the-soil” approach. The context is that that while the whole state of Maharashtra (where Mumbai is located) is dominated by the Marathas ethnic group, the city of Mumbai itself, being the financial heart of India, is multi-ethnic, and was historically long dominated by businessmen from other parts of the country (mainly Gujaratis, a community from which Mehta hails). Thus, Shiv Sena became the embodiment of the movement of Marathas to be better represented in the city and the state (and in the past, the party would physically assault other ethnic groups living in Mumbai). 

Mehta’s interview with Sena’s leader, Thackeray, gives us, among others, this gem:

He asks if anybody smokes in the United States. I tell him that Cuban cigars are embargoed there.

Why? He asks. I try explaining the embargo… He is intrigued. ‘Now if [an] American girl might have married a Cuban boy, then what they do? …’

People can come, but not their products, I explain.

‘That’s a good one,’ he comments. ‘Good idea.’ I am afraid of what I might have set in motion.

I am aware that the image of Thackeray (who died eight years after the book was published) is something that his party is very sensitive about. Moreover, Shiv Sena (or actually one of the halves which the party split into after Thackeray’s death) is currently ruling Maharashtra, together with the BJP (and the latter party in turn rules all of India). This explains why it is now particularly difficult to criticize the party. Still, I do not think that sharing an interview with Sena’s party leader – in a format that included his own words and views, even though the author remained openly critical of them – is a good reason why “Maximum City” should not be televised.

And despite this laser focus on select communities and their representatives, the book is personal too. Like that of many middle-class Indians, Mehta’s life is a kaleidoscope of various parts of India’s geography and history. Take this introduction to his family’s scattered biography:

Once, with my grandfather, I went back to our ancestral house in Maudha… my grandfather began introducing us to the new owner, a family of Sarafs…

‘And this is my son-in-law, who lives in Nigeria.’

‘Nigeria,’ said the Saraf, nodding.

‘And this is my grandson [Suketu Mehta, the author], who is from New York.’

‘New York,’ the Saraf repeated, still nodding.

‘And this is my granddaughter-in-law, who is from London.’

‘London.’

‘Now they both live in Paris’

‘Paris,’ the Saraf dutifully recited. If at this point my grandfather has said he lived on the moon, the Saraf would, without batting an eyelid, have kept nodding and repeated, ‘Moon.’

Despite belonging to a family hailing from Gujarat, Mehta was born in Kolkata (West Bengal) and spent his childhood in Mumbai (Maharashtra) before his family migrated to the United States. However, to write his magnum opus, the adult Suketu Mehta moved back to the city of his childhood 21 years after he left it to study its vibrant life for a number of years. This makes “Maximum City” both a result of painstaking research deepened by the author’s personal contacts, but also an emotional return to the cosmopolitan author’s childhood origins. 

“You are a true Gujarati,” one Indian host tells Mehta when he finishes a meal in a customary way. For Mehta, Mumbai was indeed lost, upon departure, and regained upon return. For us, thanks to this book, it is only found.

And with this material in hand, the author, I must admit, does reach various general conclusions with which one may agree or not. At the beginning of the book, ruminating on his challenging attempts to settle down in Mumbai, Mehta summarizes the country of his origin this way: “India is the Country of the No. That ‘no’ is your test. You have to get past it. It is India’s Great Wall.”

Then in the end, Mehta writes, for instance, these lines: 

The Battle of Bombay is the battle of the self against the crowd … The battle is Man against the Metropolis… But what every Indian also desires, secretly or openly, is to devote his life to a collective larger than himself.

Whether one agrees with such a sweeping statement or not, it must be said that the author did gather an immense about of material to back them up. The only question for me now should not be whether a text like “Maximum City” should be transformed into a show, but how to accomplish it.