On the first day of Godrej Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2026 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), actor Ratna Pathak Shah spoke with author Jerry Pinto about Yuri And The City, the sequel to his book The Education of Yuri. With Yuri And The City set against the chaos of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and delving into the intimacies of family and friendship, Ratna Pathak Shah and Jerry Pinto discussed how the darkest times can inspire uplifting fiction in the “Mumbai Maketh The Man” session. Some excerpts:
Pinto reflected on how even writing that confronts despair and darkness carries the hope that readers will engage with it and that something might change.
Speaking about why writers turn to dark subjects, Pinto said, “No writer, however despairing, gives up hope. When there is despair, when there is anger and there is darkness in the writing, it is because the writer feels that by talking about this, perhaps we will all do something about it. We will also step away from the dark.”
Speaking about the 1992-93 riots, he added, “It is not possible to talk about the Muslim experience or the Hindu experience of the riots, even the Christian experience of the riots, because there is no single experience. The experience of fear is individual and specific to the person experiencing it, and each person responds differently.”
Reflecting on the reluctance to depict uncomfortable realities in art, Shah said, “Real things happen, unhappily, offstage. But on stage, the event itself is rarely shown. So we have a natural dislike, it seems, of representing the uncomfortable in art…”
On why younger generations are nostalgic for a past they never lived through, Shah said, “At least we could buy into that lovely little dream world at that time. Now buying into any kind of dream is so hard. So you’re borrowing nostalgia.”
