The Only City : Bombay in Eighteen Stories – Anindita Ghose

Financial capital, cradle of Bollywood, home to India’s largest slum—Bombay is a megalopolis with many associations. But the one that’s especially significant is this: it is a place of stories. The Only City is a collection of eighteen new pieces of short fiction that captures the pulse of this always-morphing urban centre.

Featuring some of the best names in Indian fiction—both emerging and established—this extraordinary anthology frames the city through a range of vantage points. From the urchin lurking by Grant Road’s railway overbridge to the screenwriter prowling the dance bars in Andheri; from the gay man cruising in a Dadar local to the artist hovering by a studio across the Danda shore; from immigrant nurses and couples in love to runaway teenagers—every character carries a critical Bombay fragment. Bombay is the only city that can grant them dimension.

Like the megalopolis, this book of stories is sometimes coloured by romance and sometimes dark and dystopic; it can be whimsical, but it is always voracious. Put together by novelist and editor Anindita Ghose, The Only City is perhaps the finest mirror yet to the sole corner in India that has captivated resident and tourist, actor and stockbroker-but especially, the writer.