Looking at 'Meri Jaan' Bombay... through Goan eyes What's unusual about the book 'Bombay Meri Jaan'? Strange but true, it's written by two writes of Goan origin, Naresh Fernandes and Jerry Pinto.
Bandra-based Naresh, who recently quit the Times of India after 18 months there as joint news editor was earlier a copy editor at the Wall Street Journal, an Associated Press reporter in Mumbai, special correspondent for The First Edition, and has published in a number of other publications. The co-editor of Bombay Meri Jaan (Penguin, 2003), an anthology of writing about India's commercial capital, talks to Herald about writing, Goans in Mumbai and his future plans. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two writers of Goan origin writing a book on Bombay/Mumbai. Is it a coincidence, or does it say something about the deep involvement of Goans and Goan writers with that city? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- While Goan writers, both in Marathi and English, have long been a part of Bombay's cultural life, the fact that Bombay Meri Jaan bears two Goan names is mere coincidence: it's the result of two friends deciding to work together on a project they'd long dreamt about. (I'm only half-Goan myself.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- What prompted you into doing this work? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're both passionate Bombaywallahs. We've lived and travelled in other parts of the world, but we've both decided to make Bombay our homes. Among the foundations of our friendship is an ardent interest in the city and we discovered that we'd both been collecting articles and pieces of writing about the city since our early teens. To share our enthusiasm about Bombay with other people, we decided to put some of this material together and to get other writers to produce work that reflected aspects of the city they were fired up about. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Could you describe the book briefly, for readers who have not come across it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bombay Meri Jaan is a literary companion to India's most cosmopolitan city. It's a collection of prose, poetry, cartoons by the wry Hemant Morparia, a comic strip and even a recipe that attempts to encapsulate some of Bombay's diversity. It has pieces by some established writers: Kiran Nagarkar, Adil Jussawalla, Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, V.S. Naipaul. It also has exciting pieces by some of our contemporaries: Paromita Vohra and Arundhati Subramaniam, among them. -------------------------------------------------------------------- How has the involvement of Goans in Mumbai changed over the years? -------------------------------------------------------------------- More than 150 years after it first established itself in Bombay, the Goan community is firmly rooted in the affairs of the city. As far as I can tell, the community -- if indeed there still is such a monolithic Goan community in Bombay -- has made all the adjustments groups make in a new home. This means that while there's a vestigal emotional connection to Goa, Bombay is where it devotes most of its energies. If a tiny place like Goa has to learn lessons from Mumbai, what would you say these would be? Traditionally, Bombay has welcomed the enterprise of outsiders. That's been the key to its success. It's allowed people from around the country (and sometimes from around the world) to make their home on its seven islands, and benefitted immensely from their presence -- the Parsis, the Gujaratis, the Baghdadi Jews have all contributed to building Bombay.into a financial centure. The Sindhis brought business acumen; the Punjabis contributed immensely to the film industry; the Chinese brought new flavours to our palettes and fixed our teeth; the list is endless. Goa should perhaps try to remember the benefits that accrued to it when influences from around the Portuguese empire flowed to the tiny territory. Besides, Goans have long migrated to other places and made their homes around the globe, so it's a little incongruous from Goa to be suspicious. Goan would also do well to study the lessons of how Bombay has suffered from its occassional episodes of intolerence. The riots of 1992-93, for instance, have set off trauma from which Bombay still hasn't quite recovered. Bombay paid a heavy price for voting in fascistic groups. Goa must be wary of the allies of these groups. ----------------------------------------------------------------- What are your future writing plans? ----------------------------------------------------------------- I contemplating a travel book that will observe and critique India's commitment to pluralism through the eyes from a group that lives on the edges of society. But the project is at a very early stage. Would you say that Goa is often on the back of your mind (Chris Perry, Siddis, etc) when you write? My vestigal Goanness is often the subject of some of my more personal essays, rather than than Goa per se. My background determines my interest in certain Goan subjects, I suppose. 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