Day 97: Em and the Big Hoom

Jerry Pinto (born 1966) is a writer of poetry, prose and children’s fiction in English. He is currently at work on various projects, including short fiction and a novel. His collection of poems, Asylum and Other Poems appeared in 2003. He has also co-edited Confronting Love (2005), a book of contemporary Indian love poetry in English. His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets and Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics. He lives in Mumbai.

What makes Pinto’s stand unusual is that he does not set himself up as mere witness of this historic debasement of the imagination. Instead, he acknowledges that he is also culpable in perpetuating this largesse of waste. When he tells young poet aspirants to ‘RUN’, this is not the lofty advice of a sage bard and oracle, but the admission of a wry, weathered word-merchant, aware…