Bombay, Meri Jaan

Jerry Pinto is a writer of prose, poetry and children's fiction in English and also a journalist. Some of Pinto's noted titles include Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb, Surviving Women, Leela: A Patchwork Life and Asylum and Other Poems. Pinto has translated rare works of Marathi into English, like Cobalt Blue and Baluta. His first novel, Em and the Big Hoom received the Sahitya Akademi Award (2016), the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, The Hindu Literary Prize and the Crossword Book Award.
Of Goan origin, Pinto grew up in Mahim, Mumbai, and received his Liberal Arts degree from the Elphinstone College and a law degree from the Government Law College in Mumbai.


Naresh Fernandes is a journalist, an editor of Scroll.in and a consulting editor at National Geographic Traveler India. Fernandes is the author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age, City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Bombay Then/Mumbai Now. He has worked with the print media publications including the Times of India, the Wall Street Journal in New York and the Associated Press in Mumbai. He won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award for Taj Mahal Foxtrot.

One of the Guardian's 10 Best Books set in Mumbai

An invaluable literary guide to the mercurial city of Mumbai

A heady potpourri of ethnic, linguistic and religious subcultures, Bombay, renamed Mumbai after the goddess Mumbadevi, defies definition. But through a remarkable collection of poems and prose pieces by giants of literature, in addition to cartoons, photographs, a song and a Bombay Duck recipe, Bombay, Meri Jaan tries to capture the spirit of this great metropolis.

Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, Dilip Chitre, Saadat Hasan Manto, V.S. Naipaul and Khushwant Singh, among others, write about aspects of the city: the high-rise apartments and the slums; camaraderie and isolation in the crowded chawls; bhelpuri on the beach and cricket in the gully; the women's compartment of a local train; encounter cops who battle the underworld; the jazz culture of the sixties; the monsoon floods; the Shiv Sena; the cinema halls; the sea.

Vibrant, engaging and provocative, this is an anthology as rich and varied as the city it celebrates.

A wonderfully eclectic collection of essays on all things MumbaiOrganising an anthology on a city like Mumbai is a bit like making the perfect bhelpuri-not too hot, not too bland . . . on the whole the mix [in Bombay, Meri Jaan] is entirely palatable, even delicious. . . . The book gives you an intelligent mix of the lived experience of contemporary Bombayites/Mumbaikars and visitors to the city through the yearsA delightful addition to the collection of those who love BombayA true bhelpuri of a book, where diverse elements come together to make a mouth-watering and enlightening whole . . . Even if you're not a regular reader, you will love this bookA wonderful collection of writing-poetry, fiction, theatre, social history, memoirs, journalism-on India's most cosmopolitan cityA tribute to the undying spirit of the city . . . This compilation of essays, poems, illustrations, photographs, a play and a sing-along song . . . encapsulates the hope and the despair, the grime and the glamour . . . of this maddening, soulless but often self-fulfilling metropolisThe word "addiction" stays in your mind as you begin with the first writing . . . By the time you are on to the second chapter-an exhaustive piece by Pico Iyer . . . you not only begin to fathom what this addiction is all about but also find yourself getting ensnared to read more and more about this "richest and most corrupt" metropolis in the subcontinent . . . There is never a dull moment