Publish Date
6 Sep, 2025
About This Book
You cannot catch a city in words. You cannot catch a city at all,’ write the editors of this anthology. So how do you get the spirit of India’s great metropolis, the Maya Nagari, the city of dreams, between the covers of a book? Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto decide to bring together their favourite short stories about the city they call home, and hope that a narrative will emerge. And it does—a rich, varied, vibrant portrait of the republic that goes by many names—Bombay, Mumbai, Momoi, Bambai and many others. In the twenty-one stories of this collection, there is the city that labours in the mills and streets, and the city that sips and nibbles in five-star lounges; the city of Ganapati and Haji Malang and the Virgin Mary; the city that is a sea of people and speaks at least a dozen languages. There are stories translated from Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and stories written originally in English. Among the writers are legends and new voices............
About The Author
Shanta Gokhale was born in Dahanu and brought up in Mumbai. She has worked as a lecturer in English at Elphinstone College and H.R. College of Commerce, as a sub-editor with Femina, as a P.R. Executive with Glaxo Laboratories and as arts editor with the Times of India. Gokhale has written two novels in Marathi, Rita Welinkar and Tya Varshi. Both won the Maharashtra State Award for the best novel of the year and have been translated by her into English. Her most recent book is her memoir, One Foot on the Ground. She has translated Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife by Lakshmibai Tilak and the novel Kautik on Embers (Dhag) by Uddhav J. Shelke. Apart from these she has also translated plays by Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Satish Alekar, G.P. Deshpande, Premanand Gajvi and Makarand Sathe. She has also translated from English into Marathi the play Mister Behram by Gieve Patel and the novel Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto. She is the author of Playwright at the Centre: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present; and the editor of The Scenes We Made: An Oral History of Experimental Theatre in Mumbai, Satyadev Dubey: A Fifty-Year Journey Through Theatre and The Theatre of Veenapani Chawla: Theory, Practice and Performance. She has been a culture columnist with The Independent, The Sunday Times of India, Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror. In 2016, she received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her overall contribution to the performing arts. She has also received lifetime achievement awards from Thespo, Ooty Literary Festival and Tata Literature Live!. Jerry Pinto is the author of Murder in Mahim (2017) and Em and the Big Hoom (2012; winner of the Hindu Prize and the Crossword Book Award), and the non-fiction book Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006; winner of the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema). His other books include Asylum and Other Poems, Surviving Women, A Bear for Felicia, Monster Garden, When Crows Are White and, as editor, A Book of Light: When a Loved One Has a Different Mind, Reflected in Water: Writings on Goa, The Greatest Show on Earth: Writings on Bollywood, Bombay, Meri Jaan: Writings on Mumbai (with Naresh Fernandes) and Confronting Love: Poems (with Arundhathi Subramaniam). He has also translated (from Marathi) Daya Pawar’s classic autobiography Baluta, and the memoirs I Want to Destroy Myself (Mala Udhvasta Vhachay) by Malika Amar Shaikh and I, the Salt Doll (Mee Mithaachi Baahuli) by Vandana Mishra. Jerry Pinto also teaches journalism at the Sophia Institute of Social Communications Media in Mumbai and is on the board of directors of Meljol, which works in the sphere of child rights. In 2016, Jerry Pinto was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award.
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