Bom Bahia or the Good Bay was the dowry that King Charles II of England received when he married Princess Catherine de Braganza of Portugal in 1661. This land was a reclaimed one that later went on to become a famed metropolis which people fondly called as Bombay. Such is the vibrancy of this harbor city, that today it is bursting to its seams with people from varying cultures and concrete buildings that snake the city line haphazardly.
It is about this city of contrasts and multi-cultures which has been described at-length in the book, Bombay, Meri Jaan, by authors Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernandes. This book is actually a compilation of poems and prose pieces penned down by some big names in the literature world such as Salman Rushdie, Dilip Chitre, V S Naipaul, Khushwant Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto and Pico Iyer. These contributors each focus on different aspects of the coastal city such as its high-rise apartments, its slums, the bhel puri on the beach, the gully cricket, the cops and the underworld, women in a ladies compartment in the local train, the monsoon floods, the Shiv Sena, Bombay’s several cinema halls and so on.
The highlight of this read is that it contains not only mere text but also interesting cartoons and photographs that draw the reader’s attention. In addition, it also offers readers a song and a Bombay Duck recipe as a means of capturing the true spirit of Bombay or Mumbai as it is called today.
An anthology that is as varied, wealthy and vibrant as the city itself, Bombay, Meri Jaan was published by Penguin India in 2003 and is available in paperback.