Jerry Pinto

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jerry Pinto

• His mother had bipolar disorder and died when he was 35 years old. Jerry always longed for a normal mother. His father passed away before his mother.

• Jerry worked as a private maths tutor from the age of 14 years to the age of 30 years. During those days in Mumbai, popular maths tutors would only take students who scored above 80s but Jerry was against this mindset and taught students who were worst at mathematics. For doing this, he was famously called the ‘Duffer Sir.’

• He was a poor student in mathematics during his schooldays but Mrs Lidwin D’Souzaa, a maths teacher in his school helped him develop an interest in mathematics.

• At the age of 21, Jerry entered into journalism at a suggestion by a friend and his articles started being published in a newspaper. After this, he worked as a freelance journalist. He also wrote television scripts and audio documentaries during that time.

• Later, he got a permanent job in a media company that was based in the field of news. Alongside, he completed his liberal arts degree.

• He later worked at a travel dotcom as the chief architect and editor. This company won 2 awards for its content.

• When Jerry was 26 years old, one of his friends asked him to teach at SCM Sophia, a college for Social Communications Media, as a replacement for a professor who was on leave for a few months. He had to teach journalism there. Later, he was called in by the College Principal, who after 3 minutes of an interview with Jerry, permanently recruited him as a professor there.

• He has served as a lecturer at KC College, Xavier Institute of Communication, SIES College, and the University of Mumbai.

• Jerry turned back to magazine journalism again when he worked in the Man’s World magazine as an Executive Editor. Afterwards, he worked on the special projects of Paprika Media (a publishing house that leads Time Out Mumbai and Time Out Delhi). He has also served as a freelance journalist in various newspapers like Hindustan Times and Live Mint.

• His book, ‘Surviving Women,’ is his understanding of the Modern Woman to help the Indian men deal with them better.

• Jerry Pinto’s 2006 book, ‘Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb’ is a biography of the Indian actress Helen. In this book, Jerry also threw light on the gender and race politics of Bollywood.

• In 2010, he released ‘Leela: A Patchwork Life,’ a book that he wrote in collaboration with Leela Naidu.

• Some of his English translations of Marathi books include ‘Baluta’ (an autobiography of Daya Pawar), ‘Cobalt Blue’ (a novel by Sachin Kundalkar), and ‘I, the Salt Doll’ (a memoir by Vandana Mishra).

• His novel, ‘Em and the Big Hoom,’ released in 2012, is a semi-autobiography that was praised by Salman Rushdie. The book is mainly based on Jerry’s relationship with his mother. It got him 2 awards and was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize.

  

• As a translator, his 2018 book, ‘When I Hid My Caste: Stories’ gave him popularity. It was an English translation of Baburao Bagul’s debut collection of short stories, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti (1963), originally written in Marathi.

• His other notable books are: ‘Reflected in Water: Writings on Goa’ (2006), ‘A Book of Light: When a Loved One Has a Different Mind’ (2016), ‘Murder in Mahim’ (2017), Postcards From Bombay (2019), and ‘The Education of Yuri’ (2022).

• Jerry Pinto also writes children’s books and poetry. His famous ones are: ‘A Bear for Felicia’ (2008), ‘Phiss Phuss Boom’ (2014), ‘Hey, That’s an A!’ (2015), ‘Tickle Me, Don’t Tickle Me: And Other Poems For Magnificent, Turbo-Loaded, Triple-Charged Children’ (2019), and ‘My Daddy and the Well’ (2020).

  

• He has co-edited books like ‘Bombay, Meri Jaan: Writings on Mumbai’ (2003) with Naresh Fernandes and ‘Confronting Love: Poems’ (2005) with Arundhathi Subramaniam.

• Jerry has served as a Committee Member of the Indian PEN (Popular Entertainment Network Limited). He has also been a member of the ‘Poetry Circle’ in Mumbai.

• He served as an advisor to the Aflatoun Board in Aflatoun International, an organization that works to educate children by providing them with financial and social security.

• Jerry has also been a board member at the NGO ‘MelJol’ which works for child rights, especially education.

• The 2024 web series, ‘Murder in Mahim,’ streaming on Jio Cinema, is based on Jerry Pinto’s book published in 2017 with the same name. It is a psychological thriller in which the characters of Peter and Rana are respectively played by Ashutosh Rana and Vijay Raaz.