Construction of City Space and Class Identity in Shama Futehally's Novel Tara Lane

Post LPG (liberalization, privatization, and globalization) phase the divide between poor and rich has increasingly widened specifically in the Indian cities. Mumbai is no different. In fact, indiscriminate industrialisation and urbanisation have sharpened the distinction. Indeed, some of the most expensive and luxurious housing societies coexist side by side with some of the most deprived and overcrowded slums in Mumbai. Futehally's novel Tara Lane shows this ambivalence of the Mumbai city very realistically. This paper makes an attempt to study the reconstruction of the contemporary city space and broad class division in the Mumbai city as portrayed in Futehally's novel.