Suketu Mehta (Kolkata, India, 1963) begins “The Secret Life of the Cities” (Literature Random House, 2019) speaks Ndo on the configuration of cities which evolve and transform to a large extent from the migratory movement.
Mehta first delivers hard data, talks about the difference between the statistical city and the impressionist city. As an example of the latter he puts new York city, which is seen by its tourists as a multi-ethnic paradise while the statistical truth points out that it is the second most segregated city in the United States. It is from this kind of apparent inconsistencies, which are repeated in different aspects in other cities, that Mehta rummages in migration, people who seek a better life or just survive as the exiles.
“The Secret Life of cities” speaks of the identities of large metropolises which are seldom in reality defined by their culture but rather by economic motives of a country through real estate monsters or migration. Another phenomenon is crime and drug trafficking, as in Brazil where, according to the UN, in 2010, 40,974 homicides were committed, 21 per 100,000 inhabitants. However, this violence could have its root in racism and strong economic distances between classes provoked by capitalism.
The concern of the author of “Total City” (2004) on this topic is personal to him to have lived in different countries with his family. For Mehta, the coming of three generations of diamond traders, where meeting customers is essential, and their subsequent training as a writer, has allowed him not to judge or generalize people, learning to appreciate the peculiarities of people to Through their stories. His own history is full of nostalgia, that constant search for a home, love, and is kept alive by mouth-to-mouth between family and traditional foods.
The city is the place where people can live more freely, they are more likely to enjoy different panoramas or interact with people from other cultures where perhaps not all are included but no one is excluded. For this people are willing to reduce their personal space, either living in a small apartment, to be part of the cosmopolitan life.
“The Secret Life of cities” is a necessary, sensitive book. Suketu Mehta’s observations and analyses allow us to understand the complex edges that compose a city and that are finally being built from the ghosts of the migrants that we are all, of our yearning for the home, the loss of our Traditions, colors, culture, and how that transforms into something political, a struggle for dignity and equal rights.
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The Secret Life of Cities
Suketu Mehta
Random House Literature
147 pages
