Mumbai is a city of nostalgia. Whoever has come in contact with Mumbai, has strong emotions about the city, like it is a living being with soul and head of its own. Either you love it and keep a part of it close to your heart or despise and still give your mind space.
Amrita Mahale, yet another IITian, a management consultant turned writer by passion tells a complex emotional tale about three individuals who are struggling to find their individuality in the backdrop of typical Matunga building of the 90s.
This book suddenly makes you realise life was very different two decades back, and we have moved at a pace that even people born in the 80s won’t relate with their teenage era ( or Mumbai of their youthful). Milk Teeth subtly takes you back to 90s Mumbai stood at the cusp of holding its legacy identity against the thrust of change bought upon the city. The story here tells us the opening up of the economy had a way deeper impact on individual lives than we realise.
Change is only constant in our life, but our first reaction to any ‘change’ is always ‘to resist.’ To hold on to that familiarity of own ground and walls even if we see them dissolving around a new environment. While clinging, we forget the thread is breaking, it can’t hold us anymore and when it breaks suddenly we are jostle to new life and in that shock, before we know we settle, like the law of thermodynamics.
Milk Teeth characters are common yet special in own way with strong personalities and deep secrets of their own. Each carrying the burden of their doing and not doing.
Amrita beautifully woven tale, keep writing and finding more such stories to savour.