Review of Jerry Pinto’s ‘Em and the Big Hoom’

Very often, we tend to take the presence of our parents, siblings and friends in our lives for granted.  This, despite knowing that Death stakes its claim on us someday. But what if life throws a different challenge at us?

‘Em and the Big Hoom’ tries to answer just this question.  A touching and poignant semi- autobiographical novel by Jerry Pinto, the book deals with the loss that the unnamed narrator, his sister Susan and his father Augustine face when his mother, Imelda, turns suicidal and bipolar.

‘We snatched at her during the intervals’, reveals the anguish of a son who watched his mother oscillate from funny to caring, from daring to suicidal, from irreverent to melancholic as he was growing up. Em, as Imelda is known in the book, and as she is called by her children, is one of the protagonists of this book. The story tries to document her life through the eyes of her son, the narrator.

She begins her tryst with mental instability when the narrator is born and she inadvertently reminds him of it when she says, ‘“I don’t know ,Baba ,I don’t know why. It’s a tap somewhere .It opened when you were born.”

A son attempts to understand his mother – who she really is, before, during and after the spells of madness. As he traversers the path of life with her, we get varied glimpses into Em. Who is the Em that Augustine, his father (known as the Big Hoom) fell in love with, wooed, courted, married and remained with in joy and sorrow?  The one who is delirious and happy and talks about anything form her sex life to her friendships or the one who repeatedly tries to commit suicide?

The story swings seamlessly between the present and the past and brings out the inherent pain of a little boy who grew up with a mentally unstable mother. As the book tries to reach into the pain and pleasures of Em and her family, you cannot miss the subtle humour that underlies the pain. Em’s ability to see things in a different perspective and usually with a tinge of sarcastic humour is the silver lining in the cloud.

Her attitude inspires us to live each day to the fullest. She smokes her beedis, doesn’t think twice before discussing her sex life with her own children and gives brilliant pieces of advice even when not asked for.  Em loved to write. She wrote everywhere, in books, in letters she never posted, in little bits of paper, on any surface that could be written upon,  but was never encouraged to be a writer. Societal attitudes towards the mentally ill that stopped even their loved ones from exploring anything different for them is a high point in the novel.

The narrator so frequently prays for a ‘whole mother, a complete family and with it the ability to turn and look away’. Praying for what we do not have is human and the emotions of a little boy, even inside a grown up man is heart-wrenching. For both the children, the mother is not a regular fixture in their lives. She wanders in and out of it. The point of narration where Em tells her children that she never wanted them as they turn a perfectly strong woman into a ‘muddha’ (mother!) is not only humorous but equally hard-hitting. She possibly brings out what every woman feels but never has the guts to say. Societal norms of motherhood ensure women keep mum about what they actually feel. But in her moments of madness, Em brings out many vital strands of truth that speak not just for herself but for so many others.

Em and her children are held together by the Big Hoom. His place in their lives is very special. An anchor to this chaotic ship that he captains, his children adore him while Em loves him truly. The Big Hoom is an important part of Em’s life. Their relationship begins as an office romance where he flirts around with the secretary who later on goes ahead to become his life partner. Hoom is not just Em’s husband, but her soul mate. She may tease him and taunt him, but she adores him and values his presence in her life.

Susan, the narrator’s sister is in an equally passionate relationship with her mother. She is however, the more pragmatic of the two siblings. She provides the necessary emotional support for the narrator time and again by bringing a very practical perspective to many a situation. She is able to see her mother and the condition that she suffers from as two entities. Susan consoles her crying brother with ‘that’s not her, it’s her problem.’

The ability to see beauty in the mundane is something Em teaches all through this novel. She calls ‘The Big Hoom’  ‘angel ears’ as she feels they look like pieces of fried bacon! She teaches Susan and the narrator to differentiate a person from the personality. How often do we  look beyond the personality and figure out why the person does what she or she is doing?

The tumultuous journey through the lives of four people cooped in a Mahim chawl in Mumbai is a rollercoaster ride. The book navigates through the dark crowded parts of Em’s mind and while trying to dust the cobwebs in there, turns around and asks very unsettling questions. It makes us look at a ‘mad’ person with a whole new perspective.

Who is mad? Em? Or the rest of the world?

Who needs help? Em? Or the family?

The novel questions societal norms. It makes you take another look at your perceptions about people who are not like us. With minimal melodrama in it, the story ambles away like a river only to suddenly gurgle and rush into a waterfall, roaring and kicking and then settling into a calm that may just be waiting for another turn.

The book pulls heartstrings in a very beautiful way. It compels you to get back to it over and over again just to see if you missed anything beautiful and trust me when I say that each time I read it, I feel differently about it. It brings in emotions that range from joy at Em’s victories to indulgence at her idiosyncrasies to sorrow and pain at her suffering. At no point, however, does it want you to pity Em or her family. It inspires to celebrate every moment of your life. It inspires you to reach within yourself. Em connects you to your true self.

This article was originally published in www.sparkthemagazine.com ( October 2013 ) 

Whispers from the past

The beauty of nature and the cruelty of mankind – the Andaman Islands stand testimony to this juxtaposition. The calm seas that surround the islands hide in their hearts the tumultuous past of India’s freedom struggle. The white sands hide the red of the human blood. The quiet, clean place today is very deceptive: the innards of these peaceful islands hide years of torture, struggle and atrocities that can only make one wonder about the depths that man can sink to…and think if we are to be called mankind at all. The islands are proof that there was no kindness in man when he ruled these islands with a cruel heart and an iron fist.

A visit to the Cellular Jail jolted me awake to how much we have taken our lives for granted. The freedom that we enjoy, the fact that we are self-governing and that we breathe in a free country is because there were so many who were ready to sacrifice their lives for us.

The Viper Island stands in mute testimony to the many hangings that happened on the Islands. The Island has the remnants of an old court room and the hangman’s noose. Prisoners could escape only into the salty waters of the surrounding seas. These led to other islands like the Snake Island inhabited by the almost 80 different species of poisonous snakes.

Though the Cellular Jail in Port Blair was constructed later, the Andaman Islands had been used as a jail right from the first war for Indian independence. The revolutionaries of the 1857 revolt (as the British called it) were sent to these islands. The islands acquired the dubious title of Kaalapani as they were a place of no return. No one survived these islands.

The prisoners of the first war of Indian independence were made to construct the Jail. The Cellular Jail in itself is an architectural masterpiece. Like an octopus, albeit with seven arms, the radial jail looks as if  its tentacles are spread across Port Blair. The arms were connected at the centre from where watchful guards would keep a keen eye on the movement of all the prisoners. Each cell was a small room 4.5 x 2.7 metres or 13.5×7.5 feet in size with a ventilator located at a height of three metres. There were 693 cells in all, spread over the seven wings. Each wing had three stories. The cells isolated the prisoners. They could not communicate to each other once they were inside the cells. Every cell of one arm faced the ventilator of cells of the previous arm. Each cell was locked in such a way that a human hand from within the cell could never reach the lock. The isolation of these cells was so severe that Veer Savarkar, who was imprisoned in the Cellular Jail, met his own brother only after almost two years of imprisonment. The cells were small, dark and dirty. The inmates were given a pot by the British to conduct their daily ablutions which were then to be discarded away. The pots were given to them at a time when the guards felt it convenient to do so!

Solitary confinement was not the only torture used by the British.  They had various other methods by which they tried to throttle the spirit of freedom in these people. There were workshops in between the arms where the prisoners were made to do very strenuous tasks.  The British made them work on oil mills, where inmates would be yoked to an oil mill that weighed almost 150 kilograms. They were asked to crush the coconuts to wring out at least 3 pounds of oil each day. This was far more than what two bullocks could do. And woe be gone if the inmates did not accomplish the task! They would be subjected to further punishment. They were also made to wear a dress made of jute, which, given the hot and humid climate of the Andaman Islands, ensured that they felt itchy and sweaty throughout the day.  The inmates were also asked to de-husk at least eight pounds of coconut shells everyday. These unreachable targets left them at the mercy of the British. They were given just two cups of water in a day as they struggled through these tasks.

The inmates were also bound with heavy chains which ensured that they couldn’t move around with speed. The chains were actually rods that were straight and didn’t allow the body to bend. The inmates had to do all their work with these chains on their body. The torture chamber of the Cellular Jail also had a hangman’s cabin, where inmates were regularly hanged in order to scare the others.

The divide and rule policy was used by the British here too. They used to appoint some hefty Indian criminals who were not into the Indian independence struggle as watch guards or jamadars .These people were used to monitor the political prisoners and whip them into doing their duty. Thus they used Indians against Indians. The aim was to break the spirit of freedom that was inherent to the lives of these people. But these fighters could not thus be crushed – they inspired each other to survive and fight even without talking with each other. The inmates constantly sang patriotic songs to keep one another motivated.

As I went from cell to cell, along the long arms of the Cellular Jail, I could only think of the mad circus that is in play on the mainland. Was this what the people who lived and died here dreamed of? The mighty jail today seems to be sighing aloud, moaning at not what happened to it during the British regime, but on what is happening in our country today.

Only three arms of the cellular jail survive today. The other arms came down in a storm and the bricks of these arms were used to build a hospital. The tyrannical jail was now converted into an institution of care and is the most technologically equipped hospital in the Andaman Islands.

This article was originally published in www.sparkthemagazine.com in August 2013