Review: Em and The Big Hoom

Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very unusual story – that of Em (Imelda) and the Big Hoom (Augustine) and their children. The story is told by their son – part of a family who has struggled in life and has just about stays afloat all the time. The story shuffles between the present and the past starting from when Em and the Big Hoom met and decided to get married.

Em, now battles mental illness (bipolar / schizophrenia) and keeps trying to take her own life. She however retains much of her ready wit and sharp tongue. She is addicted to smoking beedis and sees conspiracies in the mundane, like, pits in the road as someone conspiring and digging mass graves. She lands up in hospital quite often, as the family struggles to cope.

The descriptions of the life of the middle class, their eating habits and the city of Bombay / Mumbai of many years back is a delight to read. The humour has brilliance, but unfortunately not in it’s entirety. While there is sophisticated and great dialogue with the humour you would read in a PG Wodehouse novel, there is also the very ordinary variety – which is a sad setback for the book.


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