Book Review # 110 Milk Teeth Amrita Mahale

Blurb:

Childhood allies Ira Kamat and Kartik Kini meet on the terrace of their building in Matunga, Mumbai. A meeting is in progress to decide the fate of the establishment and its residents. And the zeitgeist of the 1990s appears to have touched everyone and everything around them.
Ira is now a journalist on the civic beat, unearthing stories of corruption and indolence, and trying to push back memories of a lost love. Kartik works a corporate job with an MNC, and leads a secret, agonizing, exhilarating second life. Between and around them throbs the living, beating heart of Mumbai, city of heaving inequities and limitless dreams.
Milk Teeth is subtle, incisive, unputdownable.

My Take:
The title and the Mumbai connect was enough for me to pick up and finish this asap. Every nook and by lanes of the city has a story.  Set against the backdrop of Gaud Saraswat Brahmins families and the redevelopment phase of Mumbai, the author just weaves magic.

The book transports you back to time when Mumbai was Bombay. The magnificent architecture, the simple lifestyle and good old friends. The system of building where everyone knew everyone, the colony era. A story of friends and friendship. 

Ira and Kartik are childhood friends who now meet after years are engaged to be married. With successful careers and lives they have their own demons to fight. Parallel y with changing times, the building is now due for renovation paving way for modern towers. Will the towers end the colony era? Will Ira and Kartik marry? Read the book to find out.

I loved the setting, the one which I grew up in. Being a Mumbaite this one hits the right chord and a treasure of memories for people born in the city.The transformation of the city especially Matunga is amazingly described.The terrace being the most important part of our growing lives. These days used only for setting up antenna or dish, those days it was a treasure of memories. We used to plan, plot,play, gaze at the stars at night, party at the terrace. An integral part of our lives. The narration is smooth and the story is beautifully written.

A book that gives some bold thought provoking facts that need to come out of closet and dealt with. Ira, Kartik, Ananya and Kiaz all the characters are layered neatly and peeled well.

Highly recommended for the 90's people and the new generation too to know how golden the past era was. :)