Mumbai: A city full of stories

Mumbai is a city clad with dreams and possibilities for everyone across cultures, races and gender. Every individual here has a story to tell. However, the city in itself is a living book, dynamic and breathing tales about its glory, history and people.

Whether you’re born and brought up in the city or not, these books must be on your reading list. From how the city evolved to tales of horror and how Mumbai recovered from it outshining the past, these books cover it all. But curiosity is an insect persistently lurking in the mind of a book lover. Hence, stories don’t come to an end there. 

There is much more about the city, from places to people and their dreams. Everyone here has an interesting journey.

Here are the books you must give a read:

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Author: Suketu Mehta
About: Mumbai is an awe-inspiring metropolis with both bright and dark sides and has an interesting past to narrate. The author provides an insider’s view and delves into the city’s past and present from unexpected angles.

Mumbai: Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: 1660 to Present Times

Author: Mariam Dossal
About: This book is the first ever volume to comprehensively present the history of Mumbai, from 1660s to the current times.

Six Minutes of Terror: The Untold Story of the 7/11 Mumbai Train Blasts

Authors: Nazia Sayed, Sharmin Hakim
About: Set to narrate the story of Mumbai’s 7/11 bombings and its aftermath ten years after the horrifying tragedy, the author tends to delve into the minds of the home-grown terrorists and those involved in the blasts

Dongri To Dubai: Six Decades of The Mumbai Mafia

Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi, Vikram Chandra
About: This is the first attempt by any author to narrate the story of the Mumbai mafia. It narrates the tale of young Dawood as a brave boy, teeming with ambition and an insatiable hunger for power.

Mafia Queens Of Mumbai: Stories Of Women From The Ganglands

Author: Hussain S. Zaidi, Jane Borges
About: Living under the shadow of the underworld, Mumbai is a city with a turbid side along with the talked about glory. The book tells the story of how women too have had a role to play alongside the well-known names like Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel.

But the stories don’t end here. There is a vast ocean out there to explore what all Mumbai has in store for us to read about, with some really interesting authors offering their take on the city and its people. This city is a rabbit hole, the deeper you go, the more you find out.