Kaushik Guha takes me to task for using Bombay instead of the now politically correct Mumbai. The fact remains, though, that some 90% of my Mumbaiwale friends (all of them poets or artists of one stripe or another) still prefer Bombay and boycott Mumbai and the other 10% do not mind Bombay. I am tempted to quote here the opening sentence of Jeet Thayils Narcopolis, one of the great books of this century: Bombay, which obliterated its own history by changing its name and surgically altering its face, is the hero and heroin of this story …” This first sentence goes on for six pages and is a masterpiece in its own right. The book is a must read, I say (and boy, will it irritate the jahannam out of a few Bengalis!). While Mumbail mumbles, Bombay is a bomb.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 03:51:24 +0000
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