Review of Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

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I finished reading the book Maximum City: Bombay lost & found written by Suketu Mehta. It was great, and I loved the book. I learned a lot about Bollywood, the mafia underworld, the police system, and daily life of the middle- and upper-class. I recommend you read the book if you have lived in Mumbai for at least four weeks. 

This might be a good opportunity to explain why people still refer to Mumbai as Bombay. The city was recently renamed from Bombay to Mumbai by a right-wing government party who resented all British influence on the city. With the best patriotic meanings, albeit at a large expense to the already weak municipal budget, the Shiv Sena party decided to change the city's name in 1995. A lot of people took offense to this, including the author of Maximum City. To this day, either in an act of defiance or in an act of love for their old city, many people still refer to Mumbai as Bombay.

I tend to use the two city names interchangeably. When I think about anything new or bureaucratic or broken, I call it Mumbai. But when I think about anything romantic, fantastic, or old, she is the Bombay.