바카라If there was one thing I feared as I was growing up... No, that바카라s stupid. I feared hundreds of things: the dark, the death of my father, the possibility that I might rejoice at the death of my mother, sums involving vernier callipers, groups of schoolboys with nothing much to do, death by drowning.
But of all these, I feared most the possibility that I might go mad too...바카라
So says the narrator of Em and The Big Hoom바카라a boy growing up in a one BHK in the nosy, noisy Mumbai of the 바카라80s. His is a world that we can step into effortlessly; memories we recognise immediately. When he looks out his window, he sees a familiar jumble of grimy roofs; when he has a free afternoon, he spends it laughing with Amitabh in Coolie; when his parents mention their courtship they talk, as Bombayites of that vintage must, about Coke Float at Bombellis. Indeed, we can share almost everything with the narrator, except his fears.
For Imelda Mendes바카라the narrator바카라s mother in this beautiful, strongly autobiographical novel by Jerry Pinto바카라suffers from a mental illness. The doctors say she is manic-depressive; she describes herself as mad; and in the common parlance of her city she is 바카라mental바카라.
For much of the time Em is a 바카라rough, rude, roistering woman바카라 who wears flowery dresses, avoids baths, sucks desperately on Ganesh Chhaap Beedis and delights in embarrassing her children by talking about sex. Then, without warning, the manic laughter and fury give way to an unfathomable, bottomless terror. And for days she curls up into a foetal ball, twitching in pain, begging for death. Occasionally, there are interludes of normalcy바카라cruel glimpses of what life could so easily have been.
Em바카라s steady, silent husband바카라Augustine or The Big Hoom바카라is the crisis manager in the family. Their daughter Susan tries to quell the routine outbreaks of turbulence with stoicism and a soothing cup of tea. While the narrator struggles to reach his mother even as he accepts that 바카라home was what I wanted to flee바카라.
Em and the Big Hoom is the story of this love-battered family; of long spells in Ward 33 (Psychiatric), Sir J.J. Hospital; of bathrooms garish with blood from a slit wrist. More than that, however, it바카라s a quest on the part of a boy who wants to know his mother when she was whole; to understand that luminous, slender-waisted young woman who once set hearts aflutter; to relive the unconventional courtship that his parents conducted in various bookshops; to glimpse moments of happiness before the darkness began flooding into Em.
Despite the stomach-clenching subject of his novel, Pinto disdains melodrama and sticky sentimentality. Instead, he employs the factual tone of one describing a shopping expedition to Sahakari Bhandar바카라and allows ridiculous asides and oddball characters to intrude upon the bleakest moments. Take, for example, this account of a 3 am calamity in the Mendes apartment:
바카라The Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika, the municipal corporation of the city, had decided to dig up the roads outside our house. The trenches looked like graves to Em and she became convinced that the architects of the conspiracy were winning. There was nothing left to do but to appease them. They demanded offerings, and so late one night she began to throw things into the trenches. A clock hit a sleeping worker, some of our household goods were flung back at us with shrill abuse, and the neighbourhood was roused. 바카라They바카라 who would bury us in unmarked graves under Mahim바카라s roads, had demanded our alarm clock, several handkerchiefs, The Big Hoom바카라s watch, spoons, katoris, glass toffees, ashtrays and some of my college books.바카라
Just like Em바카라s terrors spill onto the Mumbai streets, the city constantly wanders into the story. Pinto has a real feel for Mumbai-speak and an enormous affection for the Goan Catholic community with all its eccentricities. So we get to meet a procession of colourful characters like Sarah-Mae, who sacrificed her ear to her conjoined triplet, and was widely feared for her black, prophetic tongue. Or the cynical Gertie, who for years was 바카라carrying on바카라 with a married 바카라Muzzlim바카라. Or the narrator바카라s grandmother, whose conversation is made up entirely of, 바카라He was quite this-thing but now this-thing,바카라 and 바카라Where do you thissing?바카라
Em and the Big Hoom is a marvellously evocative book about Mumbai바카라and a searing tale about the havoc that mental illness wreaks on a family. To borrow a Pintoism, it is an easy-butter-jelly-jam book to recommend.
