The Maximum City

In Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Suketu Mehta writes:

There are almost as many people living in the city of Bombay than on the continent of Australia. URBS PRIMA IN INDIS reads the plaque outside the Gateway of India. It is also the Urbs Prima in Mundis, at least in one area, the first test of the vitality of a city: the number of people living in it. With 19 million people, Bombay is the biggest city on the planet of a race of city dwellers. Bombay is the future of urban civilization of the planet. Gold help us.

and

All great cities are schizophrenic, said Victor Hugo. Bombay has multiple-personality disorder.

Which expresses very poignantly the perplexity I experienced during our stay there. How do you even begin to wrap your mind around a city with such shocking disparities, extreme luxury next to abject poverty, penthouses next to open sewers, conspicuous consumption next to utter deprivation? The social and economic injustice is vertiginous and blatant, so much in your face that you'd expect an armed uprising of the underprivileged at any minute. Add to that the maddening crowds in a city 1/3 of the size of London, but with more than twice as many inhabitants, along with the combined onslaught of the heat and the polluted air, and you feel like you're walking around in a pressure cooker. And yet, the mood of the city does not seem to be one of aggression. On the contrary. In contrast to other large cities with similar problems (Rio comes to mind, or Lagos) which exude a palpable sense of violence and hostility, Bombay feels remarkably safe and non-threatening. I can only speak from a very limited, outside perspective, but as a tourist, for one, you can stand on a street corner with an unfolded map and a camera dangling from your wrist, and someone will stop to give you directions. Try that in Rio or Bogota.

conference goers lunching comfortably in the garden of the NCPA

inside the NCPA (National Center for Performing Arts), where the conference took place

Restoration notice on the scaffolding around the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

Enduring spirit, yes, but dignity?