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MUMBAI NOIRedited by Altaf Tyrewala Mystery/Fiction Anthology | A Trade Paperback Original
Following the success of Delhi Noir and the film Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai now enters the Noir Series arena. *Click here for events featuring the editor and select contributors Featuring brand-new stories by: Annie Zaidi, R. Raj Rao, Abbas Tyrewala, Avtar Singh, Ahmed Bunglowala, Smita Harish Jain, Sonia Faleiro, Altaf Tyrewala, Namita Devidayal, Jerry Pinto, Kalpish Ratna, Riaz Mulla, Paromita Vohra, and Devashish Makhija.
Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
"The Mumbai volume, edited by Tyrewala (No God in Sight) is similarly structured and divided into three parts: Bomb-ay, Dangerous Liaisons, and An Island Unto Itself. TyrewalaÕs insightful introduction greatly enhances the reading experience, and the glossary helps, too. There are PIsÑmeet Ahmed BunglowalaÕs Shorty Gomes proving his mettle in ÒNagpada Blues.Ó Or for historical context, try Kalpish RatnaÕs ÒAt Leopold CafŽ,Ó which haunts long after the final word. The collection is astonishingly diverse.ÊVerdictÊBoth volumes are worthy additions to AkashicÕs stellar series. If you can only buy one, go for TyrewalaÕs anthology for the experience of sampling brand-new authors and for his superb introduction. It might provide a fictional contrast to Katherine BooÕsÊBehind the Beautiful Forevers."
"Most of the 14 short stories in AkashicÕs workmanlike Mumbai volume draw inspiration from the criminal networks and the sordid underbelly the city is infamous for . . . Armchair travelers will find plenty of amusement in touring the seedier parts of this island city in perfect safety."
BOMBAY'S COMMUNAL RIOTS OF 1992--in which Hindus were alleged to be the primary perpetrators--were followed by retaliatory bomb blasts in 1993, masterminded by the Muslim-dominated underworld. Over a thousand citizens lost their lives in these internecine bouts of violence and thousands more became refugees in their own city. In a matter of months, Bombay ceased to be the cosmopolitan, wholesome, and middle-class bastion it had been for decades. When the city was renamed Mumbai in 1995, it merely formalized the widespread perception that the Bombay everyone knew and remembered had been lost forever.
TODAY MUMBAI IS LIKE ANY OTHER ASIAN CITY ON THE RISE, with gigantic construction cranes winding atop upcoming skyscrapers and malls. It continues to have the highest GDP among Indian cities and one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. Mukesh Ambani, the world's fourth-richest man, calls Mumbai home. As do seventeen million other people, for a majority of whom life remains a fine balance, to borrow Rohinton Mistry's description, between survival and penury, between lawfulness and maverick restlessness, and often between life and death. Right-wing violence, failing electricity and water supplies, overcrowding, and the ever-looming threat of terrorist attacks--these are some of the gruesome ground realities that Mumbai's middle and working classes must deal with every day, while the city's super-rich, like the aforementioned Ambani, zip from roof to roof in their private choppers. Abandoned by its wealthy, mistreated by its politicians and administrators, Mumbai continues to thrive primarily because of the helpless resilience of its hardworking, upright citizens.
THE STORIES IN MUMBAI NOIR depict the many ways in which the city's ever-present shadowy aspects often force themselves onto the lives of ordinary people. They offer tales of women being stalked by psychopath Romeos, of ordinary men flirting with death in dance bars, and of families falling through the crack of the city's enduring communal divide. What emerges is the sense of a city that, despite its new name and triumphant tryst with capitalism, is yet to heal from the wounds of the early '90s, and from all the subsequent acts of havoc wreaked within its precincts by both local and outside forces.
ALTAF TYREWALA was born in Mumbai and graduated from Baruch College, New York. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novel No God in Sight, which has been published across the world. His nonfiction has been featured in GQ, Tehelka, Mumbai Mirror, Mail Today, and People. He has been awarded the DAAD Artist-in-Berlin literature grant for 2011, and is currently working on his second novel.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction by Altaf Tyrewala
Part I: BOMB-AY
Part II: DANGEROUS LIAISONS
Part III: AN ISLAND UNTO ITSELF
"The Watchman" by Altaf Tyrewala (Worli)
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