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

by Saumya Roy

'Roy has a journalist's unflinching eye, a poet's talent for detail, and a radical sense of empathy ... a stunning achievement.'
- Kiran Desai, Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

'If you read one book about India, read this one.'
- Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of The Cure

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, India

304 pages, Hardcover

Published July 8, 2021

Reviews

[Tahoora Hashmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saumya Roy is a journalist and a social entrepreneur based in Mumbai. In 2010, along with her father, she co-founded Vandana Foundation to support the livelihood of Mumbai’s poorest micro entrepreneurs. This is when she came across the waste pickers of Deonar andtheir lifestyle. The book is a result of her interest and persistence to let the world know the stories of the owners of what once the readers possessed.

Deonar is a part of Mumbai Suburban area towards the eastern part of the city. Otherwise known for the “Goat market” during the festive season of Eid ul Adha amongst the Muslims living in and around Mumbai, Deonar is also known for Asia’s largest dumping ground (It is also home to the city’s largest Slaughterhouse).

The garbage piles-now mountains in the dumping ground, are as high as 120 feet and stretched over 326 acres. From our discarded use-and-throw pens to plastic containers, from old mobile phones to leather bags, from construction debris to hospital waste (that is supposed to be incinerated), they all end up here in Deonar’s dumping ground along with decaying animal and human bodies.

The city sent a steady supply of dead babies, often girls to the garbage mountains along with other expendables; mothers who couldn’t tell their families they had delivered a girl sometimes threw her in the trash instead.

SAUMYA ROY, MOUNTAIN TALES
The author has brought us face to face with the struggles of the residents of the slums in Deonar encompassing the dumping grounds along with the creek formed by the Arabian Sea. Acting as a partial memoir the book talks in detail about the personal experiences of certain waste pickers and their livelihoods- the socio economic struggle in addition to the health hazards that engulf the people working in and near the dumping grounds.

“Kachra kadhi kam honaar ka?” (will there ever less trash?) According to Vitabai, she worked in one of Mumbai’s fastest-growing industries.

SAUMYA ROY, MOUNTAIN TALES
Furthermore the author also included the history of the dumping ground and its current status in the ongoing filed cases to reform the area. The writing was beautiful with the facts well compiled in a way that it didn’t seem like an info dump unlike certain non-fiction books. This approach had me going back to the book again and again despite how heavy it got to digest. The book certainly will push you to make better decisions as an inhabitant of the earth and a citizen of human society.

Although the author talks about the book being “Farzana’s story” (one of the waste pickers), the book deflects from its main goal several times for longer periods until it comes back to our main protagonist. The book being a non-fiction, moreover an experience of a lifestyle of the pickers in that area was bound to do so and was well written overall, however, to mention that it was “Farzana’s story” seemed off the mark.

Nevertheless the book is a quick and everlasting reminder of the ever increasing non-degradable and harmful waste that the city continues to provide the ground with, and the forgotten lives of the people that call it a home. Overall its a well paced, informative and a haunting read that everyone needs to pick up immediately.

Huge thanks to Hachette India for sending this gem my way💜

[Ekta M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A city struggling with the cost of its appetites.
A rubbish mountain eighteen stories high.
And the people who call it home.

Mountains Tales by #SaumyaRoy
Non-Fiction. Pages 294.


Mountain Tales is all about Deonar Dumping Grounds in Mumbai- mountains that were more than 120 high feet, surrounded by arabian sea on one side and settlements on the other.

In this book Saumya Roy talks about the life of people (waste pickers, garbage traders) living on Deonar Dumping ground - of love found, babies born, businesses, money problems, health problems and the failed attempts by municipality to deal with the waste and shrink the mountains that emitted toxic gases which spread over city and the illness it created.

All of Mumbai's waste and discarded things comes to die at Deonar.....plastic bottles, glass, twisted metals, construction rubbish, rotten food, medical waste etc.
The waste pickers collect things that can be recycled and resold.

This book is mainly Farzana's story, her family's and her neighbours story.
___

Before reading this i just knew deonar as a mere dumping ground but never knew that people live there on the mountains and have made it theie home and business.

I love the deep research done by the author. The way she narrates, about people living there, just hits right at your heart. So much of emotions and pain oozing out of the words. I felt so sad for the people living there. The book was gripping all throughout. You will have that urge to know more, to read more. This will always be one of my memorable reads.

If you like to read biographies/memoirs then you can pick this up.

[Manvi Narang · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The city and its mountains would stay in different worlds."

Mountain Tales by the committed journalist Saumya Roy chases the life story of a young adolescent named Farzana Shaikh living in the shadow of the 120 ft pile of waste that she calls home.

Sometimes you come across a book about a subject that you know exists and you see it around you happening everywhere but you've never really had your gut punched about it, Mountain Tales would do that to you!

Saumya Roy in this read depicts how the world's helter-skelter gluttony and irresponsibility of the common people and the people in the positions of authority leave the world's of the underprivileged and the more vulnerable people to fall apart!

Mountain Tale covers everything from the end of some dreams and start of some mini revolutions to many tales of pain, love and growing in the middle of a toxic halo!

Saumya Roy in this one presents a narrative tone that will indulge you with the characters like she's writing a fiction but make you aware of the facts like a great journalist she is! Mountain Tales will shine the light on the intrepid lives of the people of Deonar , their difficulties and their fearlessness. It is indeed, a very important read!

[Romita Mukherjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

“One person’s trash is another person’s scrap.”

Passing through the garbage dump grounds, have it ever occurred to you that there could be a small community living out there, for whom the dump grounds symbolized home? It’s hard to imagine, right?

However, “Mountain Tales” by journalist Saumya Roy will take you through the narrow lanes of Deonar, where a community of forgotten trash pickers has found its footing. Palpably raw and convictive in narration, Mountain Tales will render you contemplative in the wake of the existential crisis of the people of Deonar. Their dire living conditions, their inability to come out of the spiral of trash mountains, their everyday struggle for survival amidst the toxic gaseous fog and tall heaps of trash ready to bury them underneath, their yearnings and dreams – everything spoke of the sensitiveness and negligence about their situation.

Development and changes have been promised to them like handing out flyers that held little to nothing in significance. And that over time became the reason for the magnetic pull these trash mountains had on its residents, so much so that neither fires raging on for days nor life-taking accidents could keep the residents of Deonar away from these mountains of trash.

This non-fiction is going to change the way you look at the community of waste-pickers and is going to leave you pondering over the different situations and facets of life. This is a book I am going to recommend to every reader out there to read and get insights.


  

[Srishti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many a time to keep our sense of empathy intact we either skip topics that stir pity and sadness in us or we make fun of them. This is our fight, flight, freeze response taking over. One such topic: the lives of people who survive in garbage mountains, has been brought up by Saumya Roy in Mountain Tales.

Amidst huge heaps of garbage; castaway belongings; rotten scraps of food; plastics and misshapen pieces of metal that find their way from metropolitan cities, the ever flourishing fashion industry, and households to Mumbai's Deonar garbage mountains there lives a little community, oftentimes disregarded and overlooked. One might judge them for their poor living quarters, their shabby clothes but their importance in our lives is undeniable. The trauma these people go through living among fetid piles comes out as stories of Shaitans, the mountain spirits that arise from the garbage hills and grip people to lead them astray, usually to their deaths.

Mountain Tales will break your heart and at the same time give you hope, hope for the people who work through festering heaps of garbage and have found a home there, hope for the potential that lies within them, hope that shines in the darkest of times. Roy pens in staggeringly life-like prose the stories of people who are the same as us but remain forgotten.

[Annanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mountain Tales: Love and Loss in the Municipality of Castaway Belongings by Saumya Roy

Maybe some people can afford to throw away old food or old furniture but those can be a fortune to someone else. The book follows the community of trash pickers living in Deonar giving us the view of their living conditions, their daily struggles to have a normal life, and all the health issues they face after being exposed to so much trash.

A phrase, "Forgotten in plain sight" from the book stuck with me till the end of this book. That is what was the state of the people living in the narrow lanes of Deonar. Their plight forgotten, promises of solutions from society never fulfilled, their trauma always overlooked. We see such people when we move around the city, but never would have thought to empathise with their plight. This book brings into attention their lives, hopes and dreams, giving us the opportunity to understand their lives.

An essential read for everyone!


Thank you #hachette India for my copy

[Ashish Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saumya Roy provides comprehensive chronical of Deonar’s trash mauntain that offers new insight of dwellers. This landscape evidently shows the relationship between the waste,disposal and human. Beautiful love story is also one important part of this tale. Can’t assume peoples are dwelling in creek of mephitis where mountain bath with smoke and belch dense fetid air into the city.

Their dreams buoy in trash mountain or can say in wafting all around there. There is a lot of struggle, from just buying a scale for the people living among the garbage to buying a stick with a magnet, the struggle will astonish you.

incantation has created such a place in that garbage belt that it is difficult to fathom. Educated people are also in the grip of incantations, so how could Farzana and her parents stay away. But, to say that there is a demonic power inside Farzana, he has caught up with her and talks nonsense with her. Sounds totally weird. But even today in India such antics have ruined the society.

From meeting Farzana and Nadeem to their marriage and having a daughter, you will feel like seeing Farzana's problem, why are you not able to help both of them even if you are involved in their life somewhere?

Saumya has beautifully woven various events that will leave your eyes moist.

Start it. 📖

[Tony Senanayake · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author brings us to the often unseen underworld that is the Mumbai waste piles and the lives of those that make their living off the waste. The description of the activities that these individuals partake in to make a living is deeply confronting. The author leverages everyday language to strike into the reader's hearts the practical necessity of the difficult decisions that face the waste pickers and the normality of their lives, at least in their own lives.

I would have found this to be a more powerful book if the plot were more streamlined and the characters better introduced. I only completed 2/3rds of the book, as I found myself scrambling to keep up with the torrent of names, places, and plot diversions that occurred every 10 pages with each new chapter.

There is value in reading this book, even to better empathize with the reality of the lives of those who are not born with similar privileges. However, if you are looking for a coherent, single narrative then I would recommend turning to other novels that base themselves on similar contexts (for example Katherine Boo's, Behind the Beautiful Forevers).

[Smriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Mountain Tales, Saumya Roy writes with a deep sense of empathy for the residents of the Deonar township. She paints detailed and thought-provoking narratives of life in the mountains through the years, simultaneously shedding light on changing ways of life in the main city. Descriptions of towering, immovable mountains of trash littered throughout the book serve as a reminder of resistance to change in the township, as well as the unwavering determination shown in different characters and instances in the book. The book is well-researched and is a must-read for Mumbaikars, documenting bits of history about this forgotten piece of our city.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good to read this story of Mumbai's waste-pickers, written by someone who really knows them on an individual basis and therefore has some right to tell their story. It is a life few of us could imagine and it serves as a reminder of how others are affected by the horrendous quantities of waste that we contribute to every single day.

[Vanessa Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an in-depth research into the lives of pickers in the Deonar garbage mountains. Its narration has a fictional sense of feeling, but if you constantly remind yourself that these are real people, your heart hurts a bit.

3.5 stars for the fact that the organisation is a bit confusing at times.

[Vanshika Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insight into not just where the trash of the city goes but also a peak into the lives of those who live with it and deal with it. This book is not just thought provoking, it is also heartbreaking. The book has also been written very beautifully and sees some of the most gut wrenching lines written quite poetically.

[Uzma Shamim · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so much beauty in works that have come out after years and years of research – the reality is nuanced, layered, and earnest. This is especially true for sociological narratives. We live in overconsumption, we are surrounded by it, and we aspire to it. But everything is political. Your day-to-day life is, and so is the refuse that comes from it. Garbage comes with an ecosystem of its own, and the inhabitants of this ecosystem are people who have been historically subjugated through caste, class, and religion. Roy looks at this whole system in Mumbai’s Deonar with a lot of understanding and empathy. What we ward off as “Garbage Mountains” is home and the epicentre of livelihood, love, and loss for a segment of the population – life is there, governed by the hopelessness of bureaucratic and legal procedures (or the lack thereof).

I don’t think I would say that this gave me a perspective into a world I didn’t know existed, because I very well did, but I was ignorant of its history, the impact of court judgments on waste dumping and livelihoods, and where it was headed. When we say, “it’s another world altogether,” the process of Othering has already started and, along with it, the shrugging off of ownership and accountability. What I really admire about Roy, and other writers like her who do years of research within communities and then write about it, is that it brings us readers into this sphere where we recognise and own up to our positionality on socio-economic aspects of the world. Because the power of capitalism and its consequences – massively skewed class dynamics – is that we tend to distance ourselves from narratives like this very quickly.

We get to know about life in Deonar - the health and education system there, the infrastructure – all through characters that Roy has known for over a decade. In their lives is the understanding of how Deonar actually functions. It taught me a lot, not just about Deonar, but about how dreams and aspirations function in glitzy Bombay’s underbelly. Farzana’s character really spoke to me - somehow it always felt like there was more to her, and even now as I write, I feel there is so much about her that I would like to know. The image of her standing at the top of the mountain or running after the garbage trucks are larger-than-life visions in my head.

People everywhere are complex and deserving of dignity, and this is something I liked so much about this book. Roy doesn’t define them, after all, she only knew them in episodes and I like how she doesn’t simplify them in her portrayal for the convenience of the readers. I do feel that the narrative arc gets a little confusing at times; sometimes it would feel like the end, but that particular arc would start all over again. And sometimes, a few things were stretched too much and lost the reader’s attention. But I believe that comes from the level of engagement she has had over years at Deonar.

I live to read narratives like this - it’s such masterful storytelling, and at the same time so educating and meaningful.

[Swapna Peri ( Book Reviews Cafe ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mountain Tales: Love And Loss In The Municipality Of Abandoned Belongings by Journalist and activist Saumya Roy is her first book. In this book, Roy discusses and explains the lives of often neglected rag pickers living and who work in the dump yards in the Deonar landfill of Mumbai.

The book talks about Farzana, a rag picker who comes from a family of rag pickers. Author Roy describes the difficulties, hardships and emotions between each of them and their families beautifully. Not every day do they deal only with plastic or dampen waste but also corpses and dead bodies. There are trigger warnings in the review, but some gruesome incidents are presented in the book as this is a work of non-fiction. The poverty, absence of basic amenities, odd jobs they do to pay the loans etc., have been explained that will melt the hearts.

As per statistics, the Mumbai Deonar landfill has been there for almost 122 years and houses millions of tons of waste spread over 314 acres. Surprisingly, some of these garbage dumps are up to 18 stories high! However, very little is known about him or the people who live there.

Attempting this kind of narrative that depicts the less known part of a famous city, with reality in mind, is a brave task. Kudos to writer Ray for taking up such a story. When I tried researching a little about her, I read something that surprised me. In one of her interviews, this debut author Saumya Ray, a teenage waste picker, writes about the life she spent for eight years. She shares a few moments of happiness and amusing incidents when she found toys, snacks, jeans, gift wrappers, friendships and love in the garbage mountains of Mumbai. And through her life, Roy unravels the truth about overconsumption, pollution, climate change and how the most vulnerable people bear the brunt of it all.

The book is not just about the souls that live in the dump yards but also the reasons and circumstances that led to the disparities. She also explained the conditions like urbanisation, modernization etc., that led some lives to shatter. This is a powerful book that will educate many people who are unaware about certain lives in the same place we live. This happens to be one of those books that will stay in my mind for a longer time.

[Aruna Arriane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story about the Farzana's journey in Deonar. That's what the author has mentioned in the preface. Well, I feel this is a reality that is well weaved about a community that we never cared even to give a thought. This is a story about the community that lives at the dumping site of Deonar and Farzana, being the highlight of that community exhibit what are the challenges they face. When one reads this book, they might want to give a thought about what they throw away as rubbish and how it will affect not just the environment but the people as well. On top of the never ending trashes in their lives, the author also exposes how politics and the law messing up their life - dysfunctional system that never provides solution to problems.

The questions that came up were: People with no problem-solving skill are working at the authoritative levels and getting paid every day for their leadership? What leadership is this?

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this disappointing. I think perhaps Saumya Roy couldn't decide whether to tell this as a "story" or present documentary style and that really showed in the writing.

The subject is absolutely heartbreaking and completely unacceptable in the 21st century, but because of the dry delivery of the subject, you find your interest waning very quickly. The writing felt as if it was all over the place, with little structure or ease of flow.

I speed read and skipped through vast swathes of text and nothing seemed to have progressed forward.

Oh well, not to worry. Off to my local library to donate this one.

[aish · Rating 4 out of 5]

the very real reality of the waste that we create everyday and the people that have no choice but to use it to survive.

makes me think of the big thilafushi mountain that remains as "no one's problem" except those that have to deal with it (which will eventually even include the normal citizen when it is no longer manageable). an eye opening book for anyone that does not care to know what happens to the waste we create.

truly do give it a read and maybe see how waste is managed in your country.

[Sara Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

不得不說，這本書的封面太漂亮了，完全無法反應這本書呈現出的現實醜陋面。（顯然我是被封面吸引而看這本書的）

這本書在描寫孟買的一座垃圾堆積場，以及生活在垃圾山周邊的人們，看著他們靠著撿拾這座山的廢棄物養家活口、生兒育女，也看著這座山因為汙染、管理不當，帶給這些家庭更多的身心破碎。書中有寫到政府、法院、清潔業者對於這座山的觀點，都認為這座山是一座城市最汙穢不堪的現實醜陋面，明明是最糟糕的存在，卻是這些家庭必須賴以維生的生存資源，人們甚至必須熱愛這片巨大的垃圾山，因為沒有這片垃圾山，他們既沒有教育、沒有經濟、也沒有生活，這種對比非常衝擊而且令人悲傷。

這本書的描寫節奏很慢，讀的過程挺漫長的，而且過很久都始終沒有辦法解決問題，甚至是一點進步都沒有，無比現實，但對於讀者來說也不好受。
我覺得這本書的題材很罕見，兼具社會議題與報導文學，又是一個過去未曾接觸的議題，雖然閱讀體驗不算雀躍，但還是會想推薦給對相關議題有興趣的人。

[Ramita Rathod · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I got this book solely on the basis for research of some kind. I had gotten this book because I got a job in a place that dealt with waste management. I wanted to understand what various metropolitan cities were doing. But I have gotten more confused than not.

I honestly don't know what is happening in this book.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I liked some of the stories but found it confusing.. it is a novel, is it factual… seemed a mix of the two so it didn’t really work as either.

I enjoyed learning more about the culture of pickers

[Natalie Lyons Ballantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard read and incredibly insightful to a whole world most of us are unaware of l, on the outskirts of Mumbai.
Interesting storytelling, which was challenging to read at times.
Once read, it's impossible to forget.

[Arvind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very difficult to read some parts. Overall very disheartening to read about something so messed up and close to home

[Gail Kennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75...bit long but moving and frustrating picture of one sector and some families lives and the garbage mountains and public policies and the courts of india.