‘The Only City’: This evocative anthology is a window into the polymorphous megapolis of Bombay

The Only City is an anthology of short stories, curated and edited by Anindita Ghose, featuring eighteen stories about the “maximum city” of Bombay, contributed by writers who share a special relationship with the city.

Bombay is restless and beautiful; it might be a place where dreams come true, it may be cruel and unforgiving, and it is undoubtedly alienating and merciless. However, it always demands more from its inhabitants. Evocative and sublime, each story opens a rare window into the polymorphous megapolis of Bombay.

My Bombay

In Yogesh Maitreya’s “The Sound of Silence”, a young Dalit student arrives in Bombay from a small town to become a writer, only to have his dreams shattered by premium educational institutions governed by caste hierarchies. The glaring caste divisions in the city further isolate him. Dejected, he thinks, “But the problem with losing the map to your dreams is that you can only hope to regain it. And while that happens, you sink deeper into the complexities of desire. It is at this brittle juncture of life that one can feel the arrival of death. It is at this unbearable moment that this distance between life and death becomes the distance between what you once had aspired to be and what you are becoming.”

In contrast, Dharini Bhaskar’s “Silver Cloud” is an exploration of a woman’s desire to marry a man, however mismatched, with a Marine Drive house. It is the story of the distance between who we are and who we wish to be.

In “Snakeskin”, Shubhangi Swarup captures the forever-morphing Bombay that imposes metamorphosis on its inhabitants. A beautiful snake is forced to shed its skin to become an old homeless woman when its natural habitat, a mangrove forest, is destroyed. The snake woman haunts the lives of people who are unable to shed their old selves and their old lives to grow new skin in Bombay; they carry their old fears and aches.

Lindsay Pereira’s Bombay collects those who wash up against its shores, lost and unwanted children, and minors trafficked into lifelong employment at local businesses until they gather the courage to run away towards something worse. In “Strays”, a homeless man, after spending his childhood alone on the streets of Bombay, used and abused by people more powerful than him, finally finds a sliver of hope in a girl who is as lost as he is. And he learns what it is like to have someone to come home to, though neither has a place to call home. This sense of belonging is short-lived as she is soon taken from him. Angry, anxious, and hopeless, he learns the most important lesson – how to expect nothing from Bombay despite its promise of everything.

Our Bombay

“In the city, as you lost money, people squeezed in around you, not in support, but in an orgy of indifferent touch”, Nitila muses in Raghu Karnad’s “Speedboat”. A day spent at the pier in Alibaug, waiting for a speedboat, exposes class inequalities. Depicting the collapse of civilised society, Jeet Thayil’s “Your Meat in My Hands” is set in a dystopian reality where the authorities dictate food habits. Eating any type of meat is a crime, and the punishment is public hanging of the guilty party.

In Prathyush Parasuraman’s “Two by Two”, a gay man cruises in a Mumbai local using the advantage of invisibility provided by overcrowding. “Strange how, in the midst of many people, so little of you is cared for, looked at, that it almost offers the promise of privacy. Would you believe me if I told you that I had kissed a man here once, in this crowd, our faces hidden by both, our arms holding on to the handrail, and the general public’s disinterest in and indifference to us?” Only the uncaring city of Bombay can grant him the freedom he desires.

From the illusion of Bollywood glamour to the darkness of slums, The Only City captures the many dimensions of Bombay. Some may view Bombay through rose-tinted glasses as a place that promises possibilities for social mobility. However, reality is more merciless. One thing is for certain. Bombay is fertile ground for stories – dazzling and dystopian.

The Only City: Bombay in Eighteen Stories, edited by Anindita Ghose, HarperCollins India.