I’m reading “Maximum City,” by Suketu Mehta. It’s supposed to be the seminal work on modern Bombay. The cover carries the following endorsement by Salman Rushdie: “the best book yet written about that great, ruined metropolis.”
Ruined? I thought. That seems a little harsh.
On page 1, Mehta refers to Mumbai as a “wreck” and an “urban catastrophe.”
I’ve been wandering about this urban catastrophe for a while now. Certainly, Mumbai needs better civic management. The other day I was in a rickshaw on the way home, and an ambulance came up behind us, siren blaring. The traffic didn’t budge. All I could think was, someone might die today because no one pulled over to let that ambulance pass.
Even long-time residents wish there was an enforced fine for littering. Litter is pervasive in India. Last time I was in India, a highly educated cleric told me about the tragedy of how Indians take India for granted. When he was done with his speech he dusted off his hands and threw his plastic lunch container out the train window.
Never mind the trains, the roads, the entire system on the brink of either collapse or explosion or both. Mumbai is a city about to go nova, and I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so. It’s too late for traditional urban planning, but urban redesign is equally unfeasible in a city with a population of 18 million. (In the five years since Mehta’s book, the population has grown by 4 million.)
Ruined? I thought. That seems a little harsh.
On page 1, Mehta refers to Mumbai as a “wreck” and an “urban catastrophe.”
I’ve been wandering about this urban catastrophe for a while now. Certainly, Mumbai needs better civic management. The other day I was in a rickshaw on the way home, and an ambulance came up behind us, siren blaring. The traffic didn’t budge. All I could think was, someone might die today because no one pulled over to let that ambulance pass.
Even long-time residents wish there was an enforced fine for littering. Litter is pervasive in India. Last time I was in India, a highly educated cleric told me about the tragedy of how Indians take India for granted. When he was done with his speech he dusted off his hands and threw his plastic lunch container out the train window.
Never mind the trains, the roads, the entire system on the brink of either collapse or explosion or both. Mumbai is a city about to go nova, and I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so. It’s too late for traditional urban planning, but urban redesign is equally unfeasible in a city with a population of 18 million. (In the five years since Mehta’s book, the population has grown by 4 million.)
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