I’ve seen people romanticize Bombay so intensely that at one point, I felt compelled to go out and figure out what that even meant. I sat at Marine Drive. I sat at Juhu. I traveled alone to Colaba, wandered through Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and drifted across different corners of Mumbai, trying to feel that cinematic swell people talk about. And somewhere along the way, I realized something: without art, I don’t think there is any romanticizing. Art is what makes things seem greater than they are.
There’s a vada pav stall outside Mithibai College that people speak about like it’s sacred. There’s Sardar Pav Bhaji in Lower Parel that has built a reputation over decades. There are Irani cafés people attach nostalgia to as if they’re preserving time in porcelain cups. I went to all of them. I liked some. I didn’t like others at all. Sardar Pav Bhaji, for instance, feels less like a cuisine delight and more like a fast track to a cholesterol spike with the amount of butter that goes into the bhaji. And the famed Mithibai vada pav didn’t quite do it for me either.
Add to that the hours spent stuck in traffic along Link Road or the Western Express Highway, the endless crawl that feels anything but magical, and I’ve come to a simple conclusion: Mumbai, for me, is a city that gives me a home. It does its job. It exists. But I don’t romanticize it.
Which is precisely why Anindita Ghosh’s “The Only City” worked on me the way it did.
“The Only City” by Anindita Ghosh is a collection of 18 short stories set in Bombay, each exploring a different emotional, social, and psychological layer of the city. Rather than romanticizing Mumbai as a city of dreams or condemning it as a harsh urban machine, the book presents it in its most honest, complex form.
The stories move across class divides, from high society circles to quieter, more intimate corners of everyday life. They examine ambition, loneliness, privilege, alienation, desire, and the subtle absurdities of urban existence. The Bombay in this collection is not a backdrop. It is an active force shaping the lives, decisions, and inner conflicts of its characters.
Each story builds its own distinct world, offering glimpses into people navigating identity, relationships, morality, and power within the city’s peculiar rhythms. Some narratives are unsettling, some introspective, some quietly devastating, but all contribute to a portrait of Bombay that feels layered and deeply human.
The Only City does not portray Bombay as magical. It does not turn it into a devilish hellscape either. It simply presents Bombay as Bombay – strange, layered, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes absurd. It leans into the city’s middle-class life, oddest cultures, and its high-society behaviorisms in ways that initially left me baffled. There were moments where I genuinely wondered, “Do people really think like this?”
But the interesting part is this: the book didn’t fully hit me in the first go. It evolved in my mind over time. The afterthought deepened. The stories lingered. It’s one of those collections that ages like fine wine in your head, slowly bringing out a sweeter aftertaste. Weeks later, you find yourself having silent conversations with yourself about something you read. That’s when you realize you’re collaborating with the book.
This collection of 18 short stories demands patience. I took three months to read it, dipping into other books in between. I’m not naturally accustomed to short stories; every new one requires you to rebuild a world from scratch. And despite all of them being set in Bombay, each story feels like a completely different universe. The ideas explored aren’t always things I’ve personally experienced or witnessed, which makes the adjustment period even more necessary.
Not every story worked for me. Some went right over my head, and that’s fine. But the ones that landed, really landed. My favorite of the lot is “Strays” by Lindsay Pereira – it stayed with me in a way few short stories do. Even Anindita’s introduction reads like a harrowing story in itself, setting the tone for what’s to come.
I also found myself to be fairly attached to “The Storyteller’s Tale” by Shanta Gokhale, while Yogesh Maitreya’s “Sound of Silence” felt like the most refereshingly thought provoking story in the entire series that felt like a “Notes From Underground” in its own sense. It felt like an essay with the most personal reflections.
The Only City is not a book that demands instant love. It asks for time. It may seem vague at first, but if you’re willing to let stories revisit you long after you’ve turned the page and if you enjoy books that spark slow-burning, introspective conversations, then this might just be the Bombay’s truth you’re meant to experience.
