Book Review: Em and the Big Hoom

Author: Jerry Pinto

Publisher: Aleph

Pages: 235

Price: Rs. 295

Jerry Pinto’s novel deals with much less talked about topic – Depression. It is the story of Imelda Mendes, ‘Em’ to her children who is a manic depressive. Her innumerable suicide attempts get her into Ward 33 (Psychiatric), Sir J. J. Hospital. The story begins in media res, as all great pieces of epic writing begin. But it is not an epic. It is rather a testimony of the narrator who remains unmanned throughout the novel. It is his quest in order to understand his eccentric mother and get to the bottom of her personality before and after depression.

Pinto is a ubiquitous figure in the Mumbai literary scene. He has managed to weave together a neat semi-memoir disguised as a piece of fiction which is painstakingly heartbreaking and darkly humorous. The novel is quite a bit funny at times. The comic reliefs which are usually a bit scandalizing provide light moments in the course of the novel. It perfectly captures the depressive lows and ephemeral highs of someone who is afflicted with mental illness.

Mental illness is something that causes agony, pain, sympathy and a myriad range of emotions which keep us away from entering the realm of understanding of what it is to be in that predicament. Pinto writes with a lot of ease about a topic which is not openly discussed. Writing about something like depression is not easy. One needs to be articulate with thoughts and ideas. There is an underlying coherence in the novel which permeates the psyche of the reader. The novel is made up of anecdotes which are unfolded through the eyes of the narrator. The narrator tends to be a figure that attracts our sympathy as well as scorn.

The character of Em is central and most important in the novel. The entire story revolves around her. She is a quintessential Goan-Catholic living with her family in a one-bedroom-hall-kitchen flat in Mahim. The locale itself gives the reader a slight idea of the community to which Em belongs. It adds to the characterization. Before her marriage to the ‘Big Hoom’, her husband (Augustine), Em was perfectly alright. It is only after the birth of the narrator she begins to start experiencing depression. The way Pinto has described depression leaves the reader speechless. “After you were born, someone turned on a tap. At first it was only a drip, a black drip, and I felt sadness.”

The novel makes use of old letters and certain anecdotes. The semi-epistolary form and an interview like form of the novel enable the reader to witness vivid events that have occurred in the past. One tends to get engrossed in the story. The characterization of Em is moving in the sense that it is highly detailed and peculiar. Pinto draws an intricate portrait of the narrator who is filled with anguish, who wants to empathize with his mother and at times is absolutely fed up because of a dysfunctional manic depressive. It is hard for him to make peace with his mother’s condition. Through this novel it becomes clear that the opposite of depression in not happiness but vitality. It is the loss of vitality that sabotages Em’s life.

The cover art of the book is rather interesting. It has snippets from Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Amitav Ghosh about what they have to say regarding the novel. This book is highly moving and shows depression in a completely different light. It is a touching narrative of a family which is held together by the woman who is flamboyant. It is a detailed study of a mental illness and also a deeply moving story about love and family relationships. It won’t disappoint you one bit and will leave you spellbound with its poignancy.

PS – I was fortunate to meet Jerry Pinto at Shivaji Park. My friend, Mohima, contacted him and he invited us to meet him at Barista. I was very delighted at the thought of meeting him considering that how much I loved the book. I also got my book signed by him. 

Rhapsody at Midnight

A lump rises in his throat.

It is 12:20 am and there is a

faint sound of dogs barking

on the street. A void begins to grow

within him from the centre of the heart and

spreads slowly. It weighs

down everything. It is like being

abandoned on a gloomy overcast day

by the ones who don’t want

you anymore. Loneliness hits him

hard like a bullet going through

someone’s head. Just a shot and he

falls down on the ground with the

thick warm crimson fluid oozing out

and making a small puddle on the carpet.

Sadness is subjective. 

The Last Rendezvous

“Let’s waste time

Chasing Cars

Around our heads.”

~ ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol

***

She entered the restaurant with her new lover. Sitting across three tables was him with a new woman. Maybe his new lover too. It seemed so unreal, the present moment…just like some surreal dream. The situation felt like a Woody Allen movie only with undertones of deep emotions and regrets. They didn’t know why they let each other go. Actually she did know but she was in denial. They promptly let each other walk away. It hit them later. She sat with her new lover by the window-side table overlooking the street outside which was bursting into life. She left it to her new lover to decide what to order for dinner. In the meanwhile she looked at the world pass by outside the window. It was her favourite thing to do. She thought about all the people out there who were living their lives and were getting by every day and facing life as it came. Why was it difficult for her to do the same?

She looked over to him and the memories came rushing back. Past became present. Her thoughts were racing at a blinding speed. Believing in past and living in denial. She always did that. But what about him drew her so closer to him? Maybe it was the fact that she thought even he was equally damaged as she was. Even he had a darker side just as she did which would enable them to bond. But a relationship which rested on the foundations of misery is very fragile. She explored and visited the dustiest corners of her soul when they were together. She broke down all the walls for him and let him in, one room at a time which was full of melancholy. She often felt lonesome in his company.

She loved it when both of them got high on drugs and had the most touching conversations. She never forgot the things that he said to her. Not because they mattered, but because they made her feel like she did. Sometimes the silence that pervaded was comforting. There was no need to talk. But there was always something that lacked in the relationship. She could feel it all the time but could not pin it down. She thought of herself as the ocean. He was fascinated by her depth and emptiness. Except that he simply was a tourist and not an explorer. She did not blame him for it one bit. She often had to apologize to him for the way she felt. She realized that she need not apologize for feeling sad. That wasn’t a sign of a weak mind. It was just that she felt too much. There were things inside her that no one else could see. They held her down like anchors and they drowned her deep in the sea. And that was okay. But he didn’t understand an ounce of it.

***

Dinner was served. She wasn’t really present in the moment but she managed to put up a show. She engaged in half-hearted conversation with her new lover. Now it was time to leave. She glanced at him for one last time. Even he looked at her. Their eyes met which seemed to talk a language which only both of them could understand. She left the restaurant with her new lover and gave him a goodbye kiss. She took a cab back home. She loved the city at night. Amidst the entire chaos and hustle bustle, there was a sense of calmness that permeated her exterior and managed to make her soul stir.

She entered her apartment. It was absolutely clean. Without even changing, she went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of green tea. She poured the tea into her favourite cup. She went and sat on the sofa. She kept the cup on the table beside the sofa. She grabbed a paper and a pen and began writing –

“I just hope, for your sake that you one day find a deep sense of promise in yourself. That you manage to brush away the rubble in your head and find a way to love, and to be loved. It’s something you’ve been without for far too long. And as far as I am concerned, I will live life as it comes and hope for the best.”

She folded the paper and put it in a blue envelope. She sealed the envelope. She felt elated. She found that it was necessary to let things go; simply because of the reason that they are heavy. In the midst of hate and misery, she found there was, within her, an invincible love and hope. In the midst of tears, she found there was an invincible smile. She sipped the tea. She was finally at peace with herself.

***

“Is it even possible to think of somebody in the past?”

~ Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre