What did Jerry Pinto speak of at the Shillong Literary Festival 2022?
Key takeaways from his talk with author Karishma Upadhyay
One of life's efforts should be to save oneself where one's self-respect is at stake. Jerry Pinto just delivered his finest speech at the Shillong Literary Festival. He concluded it on a note by saying that one should read a book, grow a forest inside the mind, and train that mind to achieve success. "To do all that, one needs to buy a book and get it signed by the author," Jerry said. He pointed towards the author's signing area and signalled he would be there to sign his new book, The Education of Yuri. Now, I’m a great fan of Jerry Pinto. So much so that when I passed him earlier on the steps leading to Ward's Lake, I mumbled a few words of greetings and that didn't come out quite right. I silently walked away, assuming he had heard nothing of it. The question that bothered me was how I should approach him and present a blank piece of paper for him to autograph. What would he think of me (in typical Pinto-writing style)? “Arrey yaar, why couldn't this guy just buy a book?” There were approximately 5 book stalls set up around the lovely Ward's Lake. I peeked inside one of them and picked up Bombay, Meri Jaan, an anthology of writings on the Maximum City, almost instantly. The book, edited by Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernandes, was one of my first windows into Bombay when I had to go for assignment work in 2013. It prepared me for what I’d be seeing, smelling, colliding, eating, and learning in Bombay. I bought the book and stood in line to get his autograph. “Your book, The Education of Yuri, was supposed to arrive yesterday, but it did not. Instead, it arrived today at my home in Guwahati. But I’m here in Shillong,” I said. Jerry looked up at me and smiled. “That’s okay,” he said. “I just can’t take your autograph on a blank page of my journal, so I bought a book I already read and loved years ago.” I couldn’t hide the truth. “Arrey, I could have signed in your journal only.” Jerry Pinto, one of India’s celebrated authors, let out a mischievous laugh, the sort of hehehe that we type on social media chats. Our brief fan meet ended with us posing for a snapshot.
It's not difficult to understand what makes Pinto's writing so appealing. Jerry had been writing all morning at Ward's Lake during the inauguration of the Shillong Lit Fest on that warm winter morning. “I write every day, and this morning I had to be here, so I got up at 4 in the morning and did my writing for the day,” Jerry said while comfortably sitting on the armrest of his sofa. He continued. “If you took 10,000 photographs of the festival, and even if you were a terrible photographer, you’d still get five of the most glorious photos of it.” His advice is similar to that of renowned French street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who said: “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
There is another aspect to Jerry Pinto—his brilliant oratorical skills. His oral stories about his frequent tug-of-war with the city of Bombay and its people pique the interest of those unfamiliar with his work. Jerry talked about Leela Naidu, with whom he wrote the brilliant autobiography, Leela: A Patchwork Life, and how he always wanted to be someone like her. “I look like this, see! Throughout my life, I always wanted to walk into a room and stop conversations. I wanted them to turn and say, ‘Whoa! What is that?’” He paused and said what was possibly the most stunning line ever spoken at any literary festival anywhere in the world: “When you are writing, you can be anyone you want to be.” If one reads Leela: A Patchwork Life, one will know how much Jerry Pinto is in awe of Leela Naidu. Here's something Jerry wrote in the foreword to the book: “Leela was different because she had a very sharp mind behind that porcelain face with its flawless skin and greying head of hair.”
Jerry Pinto paused and said what was possibly the most stunning line ever spoken at any literary festival anywhere in the world: “When you are writing, you can be anyone you want to be.”
For someone who has been a Jerry Pinto fanboy, one would know Bombay is all over his thoughts, speeches, writings, and even his signature. Look at his autograph in my book. It seems as if he is infusing the essence of Bombay’s Art déco into his life. “To break the 1920s bland modernism and make it a little gentle, that’s Art déco,” Jerry once said in one of his videos. In his autograph, he breaks up the illegible, monotonous cursives that we're all used to by using long, leg-like strokes on the alphabet.
Jerry Pinto's session was one of the highlights of the Shillong Literary Festival's first day. Unfortunately, the festival had to be cancelled due to a flurry of violence that erupted along the Assam-Meghalaya border. On the second day, Nilanjana Roy was scheduled to speak about her book Black River with Jerry Pinto—which, of course, never happened.
The complete video of his talk has now been uploaded on YouTube by the organizers of the Shillong Literary Festival. Watch it here.
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