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1. Jerry Pinto

2.  Roman Catholic of Goan origin, and grew up in Mahim
Mumbai
 Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's
fiction in English, as well as a journalist familiar figure in
newspaper corridors and media classrooms
 Pinto started giving maths tuitions at the age of 16. “Seven
days a week, nine hours a day,” he recalled. “I had to earn
R700 a day to pay for my mother‟s nurses.”
 Even while he was getting on with his high-energy life –
teaching quadratic equations, filling columns of
newsprint, starting a travel dotcom, serving as consulting
editor for a men‟s magazine and writing other books – Pinto
started planning a novel about his family. “
 Hindu literary price – 2012
 Those who care for the afflicted must bear the special pains
and pleasures of their situation.

3. Earlier works:
Surviving Women, Bombay Meri Jaan:
Writings on Mumbai (with Naresh
Fernandes), Asylum and Other
Poems, Confronting Love (edited with
Arundhathi Subramaniam), Helen: The Life
and Times of An H-Bomb, Reflected in
Water: Writings on Goa, Bollywood
Posters (with Sheena Sippy) and Leela: A
Patchwork Life (with Leela Naidu).

4.  Psychological novel
 A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose
fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis
 It‟s early morning at the Breach Candy Hospital, where a motley group is
waiting outside the OPD. Imelda Mendes, who is sitting with her son, starts
chatting with a morose young man who can‟t make it to the National
Defence Academy because he has albumen in his urine. Imelda graciously
promises to pray for him, after which the conversation turns to her health
problems:
 “What about you, aunty?”
 “I had a nervous breakdown and tried…”
 I began to hiss a little at such a promiscuous revelation.
 “Don‟t mind my son. He‟s shy. I tried to kill myself so I have to take pills and
they have to examine my blood.”
 “You are mental, aunty?” I bristled but my mother didn‟t seem to mind.
 “Yes, yes.”
 “Oh good. My Buaji says God listens to the prayers of mentals because they
are touched by His hand.”
 “95 per cent fiction, 95 per cent autobiography”

5. Comparisons to other literary works –
Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar
Primary influences
“Mental health”, says Pinto, “is a lottery”.
And when you‟re the caregiver for
someone with a mental illness, “you‟re
looking at the loser of that lottery”.

6.  Cathartic writing – emotional release (Pity and fear)
 With cathartic writing, you pour it all out in the hope that it will be
better once you‟re done” So he sets the novel dramatically in a 450-
sq.ft apartment, where the characters are forced to “live and love and
deceive within earshot of each other
 narrative tone is lighter than air despite the heavy theme
 the characters are well drawn out and believable, and last but very
important: the Goan Roman- Catholic idiom is spot on. If characters
don‟t speak like they would in real life then one find it hard to relate
to the situation
 The huge laugh and effortless witticisms
 Perfectly simple language, in terms of explaining psychological
illnesses to readers who probably don‟t know what psychological
illnesses are
 Modern style of writing
 More lucid style of writing

7.  Pinto has long been a master of the „only-in-Mumbai moment‟
For the last 25 years – time out mumbai
 This book was set in a time when Mumbai was known as
Bombay (between 50‟s and 80‟s)
 Catholic family living in Mahim , 1 BHK apartment for 4 –
where he grew up and continues to live – in their “small flat in
a city of small flats”
 “big, baroque saga of the Roman Catholic Goan comprador-
class, Portuguese speaking, shabby-genteel, screwed up
family”
 Through the last decades of the 20th century
 Also, his descriptions of the Goan ethos are wonderfully pithy
and authentic, be it the people or their way of life, their
attitudes and expectations of themselves and of others
 Social background depicting their poverty

8.  Complex – „in-medias-res‟
 No linear plot
 Carefully designed plot to let the reader
understand how broken, discontinued and
inconsistent their lives are, just like the plot
and setting
 The narrative isn‟t sequential, but is still an
easy read, moving seamlessly from past to
present, from letters to conversations.
 Telling this story then becomes an act of
catharsis for the Narrator

9.  I used to tell stories about my extended
family,” said Jerry, “about the triplets born with
their heads attached; or about two
brothers, one of whom killed the other and
then blinked for the rest of his life; or about
the man who staged his own death because
he was terrified that the Portuguese were still
watching him.”
 “Love battered mendeses”
 delicious eccentrics – his characters

10.  Pinto handles his characters with a gentle humor &
understanding that is warm and reassuring even when the tale
is dark.
 Ultimately this is a story about family, about strength, courage
and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. I do wish
there was more of The Hoom though. His stoic, rock-solid
presence throughout the narrative lends it a backbone, much
like his. So although we get to know his roots, we‟re never
quite sure of his feelings about his wife‟s illness. That he is
devoted and caring is obvious but not much else. Pinto leaves
him a mystery of sorts, perhaps intentionally, to add to his
aura. It works.
 Here is a passage that I like from early on in the book,

11.  young migrant from Burma, a survivor, thwarted from
pursuing her education because of poverty
 A dutiful daughter silently shouldering the burden of
supporting her family. She seems in all ways a
normal young woman of her
time, brilliant, vivacious, funny, a gifted writer, a
spirited human being
 Paranoid schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder
 bipolar, manic depressive, neurotic
 Suffers from delusions and hallucinations
 Is clearly no cuddly mummy
 Round character
 1st a Protagonist
 THEN an antagonist

12.  Em swings between spells of dark, suicidal terrors
and periods of manic garrulity during which she
chain-smokes Ganesh Chaap beedis and talks
rudely about sex.
 Black person is following her
 Voices demand her NOT to show any affection
toward her son or else he will be killed by them
 She has no doubts for example, writing to her
fiance about the fact that she isn‟t too keen on
sex, and asking him whether that would be a deal
breaker for the marriage! Pretty radical for the
times she lived in! She‟s intriguing, endearing, and
frustrating all at once – to us and to her son,

13. Supporting character throughout – whether
as a foil or a contrast
Only stable element in the family‟s life
Understanding
Practical
Loving
 Dutiful
stable, sensible, a large, looming
presence, a much-needed anchor.

14.  the narrator and his sister Susan - mix of
resentment, “helpless, corroded love” and startling
matter-of-factness.
 “I used to tell my mother that I would put her in a novel
one day, and she would say, „I should like to see the day‟.
Sadly, she didn‟t,” said Pinto, whose mother died 15
years ago. Partly, I wrote it to lay ghosts to rest.”
 Her chaotic life is in effect theirs, and they
crave, especially the children, a „normal‟ routine, devoid
of incessant drama.
 Children became stoic, not by choice, but by the lack of it
(“there was no going in. And there was no going away”).
 Susan - graceful and dependable offspring

15.  Narrator oscillates between love and hatred just as
she does. He fears for his sanity and yet cherishes
her eccentricities, he wants to be rid of her but
cannot contemplate the reality of a life without her
presence, he wants to emulate his father but lacks
confidence in his own abilities, he wants freedom
from the constant upheavals that are their life and
can only imagine what „normal‟ will feel like.
 “I lost my faith as my hour glass loses sand” (when
his mother is dying)
 He also fears that his mother‟s mental illness might
be transmitted to him through the “genes”

16. Psychological Illnesses
Normalcy
Dark and eccentric
Isolation
MADNESS (read out quote given by anu)
mythic resonance of India
Brutal honesty

17.  Simple
 To the point
 Goan catholic language/idioms
 written in English as Indian vernacular
 Pinto‟s elaborate and frequent metaphors, (READ
THE BIG QUOTE YOU WROTE IN YOUR
NOTES) – Pinto depicts madness as a tower, a
prison, quicksand, an Arctic floe; it is likened to
winter and nighttime and despair and all things
dark
 analogies are drawn repeatedly to show how it
feels to be on the outside, looking in, and yet not
so far outside that it is impossible to fall in

18.  I watched as Em slashed her wrists, I recognized
the helplessness the narrator felt when there is
nothing he could do while his mother suffered; the
determination of the kids to maintain a veneer of
normalcy in front of anyone who is not part of the
family; the isolation they felt despite a steady
stream of well-wishers. This book communicated
all of these emotions without self-pity. The matter
of fact tone and the emotional restraint in the book
are what made this story so real and moving. By
the end of the book I was in tears.
 Manage to depict isolation in a crowded city

19. http://crazygoangirlreads.wordpress.com/2
013/01/28/em-and-the-big-hoom-jerry-
pinto/
http://manasis.blogspot.in/2012/08/em-
and-big-hoom.html
http://issuu.com/alephbookcompany/docs/
em_and_the_big_hoom__2_ (Extract)