Mid-Day Anniversary Special: Jerry Pinto talks about his first byline, and why it was special

Despite the traffic and parked vehicles on Tardeo Road, it’s easy to spot Jerry Pinto, from a distance, standing near Everest Building. He’s in a bright green silk kurta. “Am I dressed for the occasion!” he chuckled. Beads of perspiration, courtesy Mumbai’s unforgiving humidity, threaten to ruin this wardrobe moment for the Sahitya Akademi awardee. There’s a reason why we’re at this muggy, chaotic location. It’s the same building from where mid-day’s newsroom once operated from, and from where Pinto earned his first-ever byline in a newspaper.

In 1987, Pinto was making a living teaching mathematics privately. “I was the first freelance journalist to start with an agent, my good friend, Rashmi Palkhivala who would type out my articles and take them to editors. So mid-day’s Arts editor, Hutokshi Doctor wrote her a note. If this ‘Jerry Pinto’ wants to write things other than funnies, please tell him to get in touch.”

The Everest of writing is typing out a mountain of words for a byline. Pic/ASHISH RAJE

She thought Pinto was Palkhivala’s pseudonym! “The note is now in my archive at SCILET, Madurai,” recalls Pinto, about that first freelance writing gig. Fourteen pieces were presented to mid-day, of which they accepted 12. We prod Pinto about the other two, “I was told that the two rejected pieces weren’t as great. They used the 13th, which was called A Tale of a Thousand Pimples, and was a tribute to those roadside ‘babas’ who stop you on noticing acne on your face, and say things like, “Yeh sab problem hum nikal sakte hain.” The fourteenth piece was about being a tutor, where I was clearly told that it wouldn’t work.”

Pinto recalled the thrill of his first byline. “I couldn’t quite believe I had a byline in a newspaper, in one so widely read as mid-day, which was and is the nicest addiction the city has. I carried that newspaper around for days and peeked at my name in print from time to time, just to reassure myself it was there. When the next byline appeared, I decided to get a drawing book and cut out my pieces and stick them in that with dates and such.”

He narrated an amusing episode with then editor Anil Dharker. He said, “I had pitched a story about Virar. He replied, “Yes, I know there is a place called Virar, but must we notice it?” Bombay extended up to Worli, and maybe, Mahim, but Mahim was known only for dangerous stories of the Tiger Memon kind,” he laughed. Pinto loved reviewing Western films. “Imagine watching a film for free! I’d run to Eros. 

Meenakshi Raja, Rashid Irani and Iqbal Masood would all be there. Later, Masood would give us a full backgrounder of the film.” He also wrote about food, and had a column, where he’d interview a celebrity at their favourite restaurant. Biggies from Nissim Ezekiel to Alyque Padamsee were featured in it. In the 2000s, when Bachi Karkaria joined the newspaper, he helmed a travel column, bookmarking another innings with the newspaper.

He said, “I didn’t think of myself as a writer. Writers were people like Dom Moraes who had been to Oxford and drank with Stephen Spender. Or Anil Dharker in his trademark pale kurtas and life as a teacher of mathematics in England. Those early bylines were so important because I felt I had a foot in the door. They were my ‘khul-ja sim sim’ moments. For a while, I’d carry copies around with me to show other editors; I thought they might want to see them. To my surprise, the editors were people like me and I made many friends,” he recalled.

For Pinto, the mid-day crew are still people who he is in touch with in varying degrees. “Amy Fernandes, Arts editor Hutokshi Doctor, Meenakshi Shedde, Sharda Ugra, Jeet Thayil. The gift of courage and the gift of friendship. Thank you, mid-day!”

1987
Pinto’s first byline in mid-day