Jerry Pinto began working at the age of 16. He was
then a mathematics tutor. Somewhere along the way, a
friend suggested journalism and at the age of 21, he
began to be published in the newspapers. After spending
ten years free-lancing, teaching mathematics writing
television scripts and audio-documentaries and indulging
in sundry other acts of journalism, he got a ‘real job’
with an alleged media company that was actually into
selling space and was only peripherally interested in
news. Along the way he acquired a liberal arts degree
from Elphinstone College and a law degree from Government
Law College.
He left to join a travel dotcom, which won two awards for its content, of which he was the chief architect and editor. He returned to magazine journalism as Executive Editor of Man’s World magazine. Later, he joined Paprika Media (the publishing house that brings out Time Out Mumbai and Time Out Delhi) to edit their special projects. He is now a free lance journalist and editor and is at work on his first novel. This is the public version.
In his own description of himself, he is a poet. His first book of poems Asylum (Allied Publishers) was released in 2004. Some of these poems are to be found in Reasons for Belonging; Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets edited by Ranjit Hoskote. His poems are also to be found in Fulcrum Number 4; An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics (Fulcrum Poetry Press, 2005) edited by Jeet Thayl; in Atlas; New Writing (Crossword/Aark Arts, 2006) edited by Sudeep Sen; and Ninety-nine Words (Panchabati Publications, 2006) edited by Manu Dash.
His first book was Surviving Women (Penguin
India, 2000) a manual of gender politics, written for
confused Indian men, which has gone into several reprints.
Bombay Meri Jaan: Writings on Mumbai (Penguin
India, 2003), which he co-edited with Naresh Fernandes,
has also been reprinted. He has also edited Reflected
in Water: Writings on Goa (Penguin India, 2006).
Together with Arundhathi Subramaniam, he has edited
Confronting Love; Contemporary Indian Love Poems
in English. They have also edited A Pocketful
of Wry; Indian Poets Also Laugh expected soon
from Penguin India.
In 2006, Helen: The Life and Times of an H Bomb was released. It was as much a study of Bollywood’s gender and race politics as it was an affectionate examination of a dancing legend who had served the Mumbai film industry for nearly 30 years.
The book won the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema.
Jerry Pinto is guest lecturer at the Social Communications Media department of the Sophia Polytechnic. He has taught journalism at the KC College, at Xavier Institute of Communication, at SIES College and at the University of Mumbai.
He is on the board of directors of MelJol, an
NGO that works in the child rights space. He is a Committee
Member of the Indian PEN and a member of the Poetry
Circle, Mumbai.
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