Mountain Tales

Love and Loss in the Municipality of Castaway Belongings

Saumya Roy

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English

Profile
14 September 2021

History; Social & cultural history; Politics & government

All of Mumbai's memories and castaway possessions come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. And among these vast, teetering piles of discarded things - medical waste, rotten food, old clothes, broken glass and twisted metal - a small, forgotten community lives and works.

Scouring the dump for whatever can be resold or recycled, waste pickers also mark the familiar milestones of babies born, love found, illnesses suffered and recovered from. Like a mirror image, their stories are shaped by the influx of unwanted things from the world outside.

But now, as Deonar's toxic halo becomes undeniable, a change is coming. And as officials try to close it, the lives that the pickers have built on the Mountain seem more fragile than ever.

By: Saumya Roy
Imprint: Profile
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 222mm, Width: 144mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 422g
ISBN: 9781788165365
ISBN 10: 1788165365
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 14 September 2021
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print

Saumya Roy is a journalist and activist based in Mumbai. In 2010, she co-founded Vandana Foundation to support the livelihoods of Mumbai's poorest micro-entrepreneurs; through this she met the community who depend on Deonar. Her writing has appeared in Forbes India magazine, wsj.com and Bloomberg News among others, and she has contributed a chapter to Dharavi: The Cities Within (HarperCollins, 2013), an anthology of essays on Asia's largest slum.

Reviews for Mountain Tales: Love and Loss in the Municipality of Castaway Belongings

It is rare that a book is a deeply moving love story with unforgettable characters while also illuminating a country and a culture. Saumya Roy's book is a riveting love story set in the harrowing world of life as a trash picker on Mumbai's garbage mountain. Read it for a most delicious story, read it to understand India, read it to know what it is like to grow up in extreme poverty in the shadow of enormous wealth. If you read one book about India, read this one. -- Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of The Cure A terrific and thrilling book about people who are trapped in the gravitational force of a garbage mountain in Mumbai. Delightful and powerful. * Manu Joseph, author of Serious Men *