The city writer

Author Jerry Pinto in conversation with BOSKI GUPTA about his latest book, his characters, his writings and his perennial muse Mumbai

ou can’t attach Jerry Pinto to a specific genre. He can be both dramatic and poignant on the same page. He knows to tickle and also knows to scratch. He writes on people, places, incidents, and can also rewrite other people’s work. We know him as a man of words. He’s a writer... columnist, journalist, author, translator... He’s articulate, he’s witty and he knows it. It is this confidence that makes him stand out among his ilk. His characters speak for themselves, and Mumbai has featured in almost all his works as just another character, including his latest book.

Murder in Mahim is nothing like what you wrote earlier. Was writing a thriller a part of your plan to write for different genres? Will more genres be explored? ■ I’m trying to think of a thing I’ve done twice. I wrote a book about Helen in Helen: The life and times of a Bollywood H-Bomb

(Penguin India) and then I co-wrote a book with Leela Naidu Leela: A Patchwork Life (Hamish Hamilton, India) and I wrote a book about a teddybear that is about to be sold to a collector, A bear for Felicia (Puffin India) and the words for a graphic novel

When Crows are White (Scholastic) and Em and the Big Hoom (Aleph) which was an autobiographical novel. So I guess, I just like playing with words, seeing what they can do, seeing how they work.

Mahim somehow becomes a character in your books, is it because you’re associated with it? City as a character always adds to the story...

When I was a boy, I wanted to escape Mahim. It seemed small and South Bombay seemed like the real city. Now I’m back, as Nissim Ezekiel puts it, in ‘my backward place’. And I enjoy it now in a way I didn’t in the prelapsarian past.

I loved the investigative officer’s character (Zende) in the book. Do you know anyone like that? Was that character researched or is it the personification of an idea?

I don’t know too many policemen, no. I think there’s a small part of me that’s actually frightened of policemen, of their authority, of their unapproachability, of their constant interface with violence, of their reputations in this city. So I made Peter and Zende friends.

There’s an undertone of frustration among the police force regarding their jobs and duties in the book. How much research went into that?

I remember the day the police rioted in the city. I think it was August 1982. I was in Fort at the time and heard my first gunshots. I ran for cover like everybody else and read the next day about the discontents of the policemen, how they were planning to wear black badges at the Maharashtra Day Parade. And suddenly the figure of the policeman became human.

I think about power and authority all the time. I think we often see the policeman as the figure of authority that exercises the power of the State. Like the wrong Facebook post and a policeman is at your door to scoop up your teenage daughter and take her to the police station. But the police too are part of a system and their power in the outside world has to be balanced by their powerlessness in the face of authority.

Generally how much research goes into your book? Did you meet bisexuals or transgenders while working on it? The grim story on the gay sex and prostitution is mostly ignored in our society unless we want to write or read

masala news...

I try to do as much research as I need. But there’s actually no way to know what you need or what you don’t until you’ve started writing. Most of the notes I made that came out of paper, stayed on paper. But the stories I was told when I walked the streets to talk to people who have been criminalised by Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code; those stayed with me. I had to cut out many more than I used.

But research is essential. The trick is to know when to stop. Because at some point you will have to take the leap and write the book. Otherwise, you could dither endlessly, reading this, checking that out, making sure of this and that and using that as an excuse not to commit yourself to the page.

A lot of reviews on your latest book which I read say that one should not pick it up if looking for literary genius like Em and the Big Hoom. Did you intend to keep the language simple and straight?

Comparisons are odious, I think, but they’re also inevitable. I wrote Em and the Big

Hoom and I was delighted by the reviews; most of them were positive. I think I was expected to write another book in the same vein.

I knew Murder in Mahim was not the same kind of book. I don’t see it as genre fiction though; I see it as a rage novel, as a way of saying: Look what we are doing to each other, look what we are doing to ourselves. But the reviewers are quite right: this is not

Em and the Big Hoom. It is Murder in Mahim. These two happen to share the same author.

You have written non-fiction, novels, poetry, children’s books, and also translated Marathi books... how do you juggle the work? Do you take a different role each time you switch work?

I wish I did. It would be fun to have so many different selves. No, it’s the same Jerry each time with the same insecurities about the whole business of writing. Whether it’s a poem or a short story or a novel, it’s me taking a word for a walk. Translation requires a certain abnegation of the self. There the author you are translating must be accommodated. That’s the major difference.

What part/kind of the writing you like the most?

That moment when an idea drifts into your head... And you’re playing with it, seeing how it will shape up, is it animal or vegetable or mineral, will it hold up, will it work... that’s the best and most exhilarating part of writing. After that, it’s work.

Does being a journalist help you to write better? What advice would you give to new writers?

I see all the journalism I wrote, all the students I have taught over the last 25 years at SCM (the Social Communications Media at the Sophia Polytechnic, a post-graduate course in media, ranked among the top 10 in the country), as riyaaz, as part of the preparation. I did a lot of interviewing when I was a young reporter and I think that helped, trying to figure out how to get the person across in words.

Also, tell us about your translation work... How does it differ from writing your own idea or story and working on others?

Translation is less lonely. There is another voice in the room, another set of sounds, it frees you from the traps set by your own mind, by your ego. It lets you inhabit another self. It forces you to encounter a new language and then makes you return to the one in which you are familiar and to use that one in the service of the other. The act of translation has enriched me in ways I could not imagine; and all the time there is the terrible feeling that you are losing so much when you translate, so many lovely onomatopoeias are being lost, the savour of that tongue…

What are you writing next? Or is there a new translation in the pipeline?

Last year, I finished translating Ganesh Matkari’s Khidkya Ardhya Ugdya, a series of interconnected short stories about a real estate scam in Mumbai. That will come out as Half Open Windows soon.

TRANSLATION IS LESS LONELY. THERE IS ANOTHER VOICE IN THE ROOM, ANOTHER SET OF SOUNDS, IT FREES YOU FROM THE TRAPS SET BY YOUR OWN MIND, BY YOUR EGO. IT LETS YOU INHABIT ANOTHER SELF. IT FORCES YOU TO ENCOUNTER A NEW LANGUAGE...