Govind Narayan's Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863

Govind Narayan's Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863

by Gyan Prakash
ISBN-10:
1843313057
ISBN-13:
9781843313052
Pub. Date:
02/01/2009
Publisher:
Anthem Press
ISBN-10:
1843313057
ISBN-13:
9781843313052
Pub. Date:
02/01/2009
Publisher:
Anthem Press
Govind Narayan's Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863

Govind Narayan's Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863

by Gyan Prakash

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Overview

Guiding the reader on a tour of the sights and sounds of an emerging city struggling to shake off colonialism and wrestling with the formation of its own budding identity, Narayan’s beguiling book offers descriptions of Mumbai’s daily life, its people and its institutions: the parts of the whole that come together to create this diverse and vivacious place. This valuable text is a rare and enthralling glimpse into a fascinating period and place otherwise lost to time.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781843313052
Publisher: Anthem Press
Publication date: 02/01/2009
Series: Anthem South Asian Studies
Edition description: First Edition, 1
Pages: 416
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Govind Narayan (1815–1865) was one of the leading authors of his age, producing a series of original books that were principally designed to strengthen the moral fibre.

Murali Ranganathan lives and works in Mumbai. After having worked in various jobs, Murali turned to research. ‘Govind Narayan's Mumbai’ is his first publication.

Gyan Prakash is Professor of History at Princeton University.

Read an Excerpt


Whenever somebody visits Mumbai for the first time, they are most keen to see all of its famous sites including the Mint, the Docks, the Armoury, its cotton spinning machines and cloth looms, the Museum, telegraph machine, the metalled roads, the Observatory, its hospitals, the gunpowder works, the Town Hall, the Panjarapole – a home for destitute animals – the narrow strip of land at Colaba with the lighthouse at its very end, the mills, the Industrial School and others. Besides, many moneylenders have their counting-houses in the Fort, where one’s eyes are dazzled by the heaps of freshly minted coins from the Mint. One is enthused by the constant ringing of the coins. There are shops run by Parsis, Englishmen and Mussalmans filled with exquisite crystal ware and other expensive objects. One can also see doctors, their shelves lined with potions of many colours; they look very impressive and one begins to feel that they might be real experts in the art of medicine. Similarly if one enters a merchant’s house, one cannot help getting the feeling that one has entered the abode of Lord Kubera himself after looking at the opulent furniture, the grand vehicles, the demeanour of his servants and the obvious wealth visible throughout. There are bookshelves set against the walls, supporting thousands of neatly bound books on a myriad subjects, while pictures are displayed at various vantage points. In other words, wherever one goes, there is something to catch the eye. After five in the evening, attractive wagons decorated in a kaleidoscope of colours and drawn by Arabian horses can be seen along the road to the Camp. Their pomp and splendour left a man recentlyarrived from the Konkan momentarily dumbstruck. He exclaimed, ‘Amazing! Your Mumbai is just like Paradise. If one doesn’t visit Mumbai at least once in a lifetime, life is not worth having lived’.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Foreword by Gyan Prakash; Introduction; Govind Narayan: A Preliminary Bio-Bibliography; Govind Narayan’s Mumbai; Notes to the Text; Biographical Index of Mumbai Men of the Nineteenth Century; Descriptive Index of Mumbai Institutions of the Nineteenth Century; Bibliography; Glossary; Index; Map

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'Etched in this portrait of death and ruin are the outlines of a remembered city. Its shape peers through the images of the creaking infrastructure, eroded institutions… As a record of Mumbai’s nineteenth century history, as a text of urban consciousness, Mumbaiche Varnan is superb.' —from the Foreword by Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University

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