Mumbai Bombay

The history is told here how, within three centuries, seven west-coast islands evolved into the Bombay peninsula, then into a flourishing center for trade. It ultimately became the cosmo politan, high-rise metropolis of Mumbai.

'City of Gold', 'Urbs Prima in Indis', 'Maximum City': no Indian metropolis has captivated the public imagination quite like Mumbai. The past decade has seen an explosion of historical writing on the city that was once Bombay. This book, featuring new essays by its finest historians, presents a rich sample of Bombay's palimpsestic pasts. It considers the making of urban communities and spaces, the workings of power and the nationalist makeover of the colonial city. In addressing these themes, the contributors to this volume engage critically with the scholarship of a distinguished historian of this frenetic metropolis. For over five decades, Jim Masselos has brought to life with skill and empathy Bombay's hidden histories. His books and essays have traversed an extraordinarily diverse range of subjects, from the actions of the city's elites to the struggles of its most humble denizens. His pioneering research has opened up new perspectives and inspired those who have followed in his wake. Bombay Before Mumbai is a fitting tribute to Masselos' enduring contribution to South Asian urban history

Mumbai has been extensively photographed over the past century. Like New York, it is a city full of men and women with aspirations of making it big in life. Mumbai is also known as a dream factory because of the overwhelming presence of its film industry, one of biggest in the world. This book collects nearly three decades of work from Raghu Rai, one of Indias foremost photojournalists. The pictures encompass life in all its manifestations from the high-rise skyscrapers to the gushing waves of the Arabian sea. It shows movement and activity that almost never ceases fairs and festivities, political demonstrations, films in the making, and the advertising and modelling scene.

Mumbai / Bombay is a quintessential urban expression which represents the questions and puzzles related to Indian urbanity. This book traces the various ways through which majoritarianism and neoliberal capitalist accumulation has reorganised Bombay or Mumbai in India. The book assesses Mumbai’s present trajectories and processes as being embedded in its recent past. It looks at these changes by exploring work and labour; health and education; spatial planning and infrastructural development; politics and identity; and shows how financialisation, land speculation, deregulation, and informality have impacted the city’s culture and everyday living. The contributors to this volume analyse the consequences of these changes for women and men across ages, as they live their material and cultural lives; evaluate the role of the changing nature of work, urban infrastructure, and planning; determine its outcome for public health and education; and take a measure of its manifestation in the field of arts and culture. The volume explores the processes that reorient these changes, the socio-spatial and political implications of these on the inhabitants of the city, and the resistance and response to marginalisation. This interdisciplinary volume will interest students and researchers of economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, public policy, development studies, and urban studies. It will also be useful to urban practitioners, planners, bureaucrats, activists, and general readers.

'City of Gold', 'Urbs Prima in Indis', 'Maximum City': no Indian metropolis has captivated the public imagination quite like Mumbai. The past decade has seen an explosion of historical writing on the city that was once Bombay. This book, featuring new essays by its finest historians, presents a rich sample of Bombay's palimpsestic pasts. It considers the making of urban communities and spaces, the workings of power and the nationalist makeover of the colonial city. In addressing these themes, the contributors to this volume engage critically with the scholarship of a distinguished historian of this frenetic metropolis. For over five decades, Jim Masselos has brought to life with skill and empathy Bombay's hidden histories. His books and essays have traversed an extraordinarily diverse range of subjects, from the actions of the city's elites to the struggles of its most humble denizens. His pioneering research has opened up new perspectives and inspired those who have followed in his wake. Bombay Before Mumbai is a fitting tribute to Masselos' enduring contribution to South Asian urban history

Every day in Mumbai 5,000 dabbawalas (literally translated as "those who carry boxes") distribute a staggering 200,000 home-cooked lunchboxes to the city's workers and students. Giving employment and status to thousands of largely illiterate villagers from Mumbai's hinterland, this co-operative has been in operation since the late nineteenth century. It provides one of the most efficient delivery networks in the world: only one lunch in six million goes astray. Feeding the City is an ethnographic study of the fascinating inner workings of Mumbai's dabbawalas. Cultural anthropologist Sara Roncaglia explains how they cater to the various dietary requirements of a diverse and increasingly global city, where the preparation and consumption of food is pervaded with religious and cultural significance. Developing the idea of "gastrosemantics" - a language with which to discuss the broader implications of cooking and eating - Roncaglia's study helps us to rethink our relationship to food at a local and global level.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry’s stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a “State of Internal Emergency.” Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances – and their fates – become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry’s prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.