Book Review: Maximum City

Maximum City : Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta, Knopf, 560 pages

The first story in Roma Eterna is about a Greek ambassador visiting Rome and being taken on a tour of the Roman underworld by the youngest prince. Like this prince, Suketu Mehta takes us on a tour of the Mumbai underworld to meet people whom you may not encounter in your daily life. These people open up to him like they are standing in a confession box and thus we get to hear a Shiv Sena man explaining how it is to kill a Muslim, a gangster explaining what he does after shooting a victim and one of the top cops explaining why they do encounters where suspects are just murdered without trial.
Mehta lived in Mumbai and then moved to New York and various other cities before coming back to Mumbai to write a book about the city.
It is not just the unknown people who open up to him, but also people like Bal Thackerey, Chotta Shakeel and Sanjay Dutt. The portrait of Mumbai is drawn through the lives of these people. In one incident actress Preity Zinta is on an outdoor shoot and asks Suketu Mehta to point out some gangsters who have killed others. This curiosity about the lives of people who violate law is the underlying thread which connects most of the stories in the book.
There are ironies: Director Vidhu Vinod Chopra who thinks that Indians have screwed up Kashmir makes a politically correct movie on the issue titled Mission Kashmir with Suketu Mehta as the co-writer. Vinod Chopra also places himself as a brilliant film maker who has to make movies for what he calls ulloo audience.
Then there are more ironies. The star of Mission Kashmir, Sanjay Dutt, plays a cop but was arrested for illegally possessing an AK-47. Rakesh Roshan, father of Hritik Roshan who plays the terrorist was shot by actual gangsters. During the filming of the interrogation scene with Sanjay Dutt, the actual cop who arrested Sanjay Dutt turns up at the set. The Shiv Sena member who murdered a Muslim (because he was a Muslim), now befriends Muslims. Bal Thackerey who is out to ban Valentine’s Day celebrations, invites Michael Jackson to his home and sees no fault in that.
In this book, the author is not a distant spectator, but gets involved with the characters in the book. He gets gangsters to visit his hotel room and speak out their minds. He befriends a beer bar girl and travels with her when she is meeting her father after a long time. Sometimes these incidents seem so unrealistic to be true – or too filmi.
Mumbai is not just a city of law violators, there are people who struggle to make a living. People who travel from Virar to Churchgate everyday, go back home, sleep and do it again the next day. These people age faster, but their lives do not have tales worth writing. You will not find many such people in this book.
This book will shock the hell out of you and also this must be one of the few non-fiction page turners I have read (Into Thin Air is another). Mehta has done wonderful research and gets us involved with the lives of so many criminals and glamorous people at great personal risk. The narrative is gripping and the characters we encounter are so different that the book holds your attention till the end. Most of the tales are sensationalist and there is a tendency to romanticise the gangsters (They have families and they pray and some are even vegetarians). But this is a book on Mumbai unlike any other and is a excellent read.
Related Links: Terri Gross interviews Suketu Mehta, Sandeep’s Review of Maximum City

Agra Fort – two new gates

Less than 2 km away from Taj Mahal is Agra Fort, which was the first building project of Akbar. Built between 1565 and 1575, this fort contains the famous Diwan-i-Khas (private court) and Diwan-i-Am (public court). This was also the fort in which Aurangazeb imprisoned Shahjahan. The fort has two gates, the Delhi Gate and Amar Singh Gate. Now workers in the fort have discovered two new gates.

Workers engaged in the fort’s repair discovered the hidden ‘Water Gate’ and the ‘Haathi Gate’ during their restoration work. Historians say that the British who set up their military bases here and made alterations to the fort’s architectural structure had sealed the gates for their own convenience.
Hathi Gate forms one of the four main entrances to the fort, whereas the Water Gate lies hidden between the fort’s wall and a ditch.
“When work was being done from Amar Singh gate to Haathi Ghat gate, all the undergrowth and bushes surrounding it was being cleared. Then two gates namely the water gate and hathi ghat gate were revealed,” said Amarnath Gupta, Conseravation Assistant.
Trade was mainly conducted through the Hathi Gate whereas the existence of the Water Gate has also been acknowledged in historical texts.
It is believed that the gate was operated in times of water crises. Moreover it was also the gateway, which the queens used for boating. [Hidden gateways discovered in Agra fort]

VC Money to India

Matt Marshall, investigating the anemic growth of American startups think that a lot of VC money is now going overseas, especially to India and China.

That said, Battery Ventures, which has offices in San Mateo, raised a $450 million fund in September, and recently led it’s first investment in India: $15 million in Bangalore’s Tejas Networks, which is developing optical networking products in the Indian market for a fraction of what American companies do, says partner Thomas Crotty. Battery hopes to help it expand into the U.S market with the help of a partnership with Nortel, he said. Matrix Partners, another big-name firm with offices in Menlo Park, also recently opened an office Bangalore to start investing there. They plan on about one or two a year. Stay tuned as we follow this trend — unfortunately, there are no great statistics out there that reliably quantify it. [Is VC money going abroad?]

What was missing in the SOTU

To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.
To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act — and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. [Transcript of State of the Union]

While the President asked Saudi Arabia opt for democracy, a very bold statement considering the relations between the President and the monarchy, he left our the major ally Pakistan. Since he was speaking in the context of the Middle East, he may have left out the major non-NATO ally. But still that is no excuse for letting one of the biggest proliferators and violators of democracy off the hook.
While on the subject of terrorism, most jihadists claim to be fighting for the rights of Muslims in various countries. In Iraq, Kashmir and Palestine, the voters choose their leaders, while the terrorist sponsors live in dictatorship or monarchy.

Vishnu temple of Ay Dynasty

A 9th century Vishnu temple, which remained dilapidated for years, is being rebuilt at Perumpazhuthur, near here, thanks to the initiative of the local people.
Authenticated by historians as having been built during the rule of the ”Ay” dynasty in 867 A.D, the temple is one of the rarest of its kind the country with a circular-shaped sanctum santorum.
Though the temple finds mention in the ”Monuments of Kerala”, published by the Archaeological Survey of India, it remained dilapidated with most of its remains buried till the people of Perumpazhuthur organised themselves to reconstruct the edifice and restore its old glory a few months ago.
The book, authored by H Sarkar, mentions only a few circular temples in Kerala, including that at Perumpazhuthur. He also highlighted that circular temples were rare for Dravidian style.
”The Arts and Crafts of Travancore,” authored by Stella Kramrish and pubished by the Department of Culture, carries the photo of the temple in a dilapidated condition and the damaged statue of Vishnu. [Local people rebuild a 9th century Vishnu temple via IndiaArchaeology]

Before the Cheras established themselves as a major force in Kerala, it was ruled by the Ay dynasty sometime between 7th to 11th century AD with Vizhinjam as the capital.The Ay dynasty ruled the land between Nagercoil and Thiruvalla. In A History of South India, Nilakanta Sastry writes that the Ay kingdom lay around the Podiya hill, the southernmost section of the Western Ghats. He also writes that the Greek geographer Ptolemy wrote about one ‘Aioi’ was ruling the country at that time which included Cape Comorin and Mount Bettigo.

Tsunami and Indo-US relations

When the Congress Govt. with Communist support came into power in India there was a fear that the relations that the previous NDA Govt. had built with United States and Israel would erode. But on the contrary, the relation seems to be going fine, even though many of us don’t like the kid glove treatment that the General across the border is getting.

What does all this mean geopolitically? First, there is the fact that the left-of-center Congress Party-led government willingly worked with the United States in responding to the tsunami. In the past, such a regime would have gone to great lengths to torpedo any American effort to provide relief in the region. For example, when a massive cyclone hit Bangladesh in 1991, leaving extensive devastation in its wake, India expressed misgivings about the U.S. response, which was called “Operation Sea Angel.” These anxieties, a product of the cold-war years, have steadily dissipated over the past decade, replaced by a willingness to work with, and even court, the United States on a range of issues, from anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean to jointly confronting terrorism. Indeed, the growing scope of military-to-military contacts between the two countries over the past several years (a centerpiece of the new Indo-U.S. relationship) made it possible for the two states to play a leading and coordinated role in post-tsunami relief. To be sure, the countries remain at odds over certain issues, such as India’s ties to Iran and the brutal regime in Myanmar. But the signs point in a positive direction. For example, in a sharp departure from the past, the ongoing U.S. military presence in Sri Lanka to provide humanitarian assistance has not elicited any visceral, reflexive comments from New Delhi officialdom. The latent suspicion of all American initiatives in the region that until recently preoccupied India’s foreign policy elite now appears to be in steady decline. [Assist Leader via Dan Drezner]

After the nuclear tests, there was a series of discussions between India and United States in which both the nations understood each other more clearly. During the Kargil crisis, United States sided with India, much to the surprise of New Delhi, according to Strobe Talbott.
But one of the important reasons for the removal of suspicion is improved trade relations between the two countries and India was one of the three countries which supported Bush’s re-election.

Meditation and hypertension

Recently there was a finding that meditation caused a increase in high frequency brain activity as well as a change in the brain structure. Now here are some studies from the Bay Area which shows some positive changes in practictioners of Transcendental meditation.

Of the three groups that participated in the study, meditation practitioners witnessed the reduction of 6 millimeters in diastolic pressure and a 3-millimeter drop in systolic blood-pressure readings.
There was also a 23 percent reduction in that group in the use of antihypertensive medications used to treat the disease.
Staggers said meditation has shown promise in helping reduce the symptoms of numerous physical and mental ailments, including asthma, depression, anxiety, cancer, diabetes and arthritis. He also said the technique can be an effective tool in the fight against drug dependency and addiction.[Good marks on relaxing for health]

Road Shows

When I used to live in Los Angeles, the evening news used to filled with stories of high speed car chases and shootings on the freeways. Compared to L.A, Silicon Valley is a sleepy place filled with immigrant geeks. Since these geeks cannot behave as characters in Jerry Bruckheimer movie, like L.A residents, they make up for it in various innovative ways on the freeways.

I work with the woman caught using the breast pump while driving down the freeway (she once told me what a great idea this was so she could multitask on her way to work, etc). I showed her your article and she was highly embarrassed. She never thought that someone would actually be looking at her while she was doing the pumping down the freeway (of course, driving so much slower usually welcomes dirty looks and gawking). Judging from her humiliation, I guess that her days of multitasking while driving are over.[Drivers give new meaning to the words ‘road show’]

I have seen people reading newspapers and shaving while driving, but looks like that is nothing.