Volume 48, Number 9 · May 31, 2001
Dreaming of Mangoes
By Pankaj Mishra
The Death of Vishnu
Manil Suri
Norton, 295 pp., $24.95
In recent years, most of the bad news from India has been supplied by Bombay. Once set apart from India by its metropolitan glamour and affluence and efficiency, this overbuilt island city is now host to all the great Indian problems: apart from overpopulation and poverty, it has an aggressively selfish Hindu middle class, a resentful minority of Muslims, an omnipresent mafia, religious fanatics, corrupt politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats, and a growing number of AIDS cases. Not surprisingly, the myth of Bombay's decay has spread fast; the idea that Bombay was once a great cosmopolitan city and is now falling apart has become a commonplace.
Review, 3077 words
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