A journalist for over seventeen years, Pinki Virani was born in Bombay
in 1959. Educated at Bombay, Poona and Mussoorie, she did her Masters in
Journalism from Columbia University in USA under the aegis of the
Foundation Aga Khan scholarship. Following an internship at a
The Sunday Times, she reported extensively on the race riots in
Britain before returning to Bombay to edit Mid-Day. She has launched
a city magazine, edited a city paper, and reported from all over the
country as special correspondent to a national weekly.
She is the author of three books -- Aruna's Story, Once was Bombay,
and Bitter Chocolate. All three are nonfiction and confront
uncomfortable subjects. Aruna's Story is about the rape of a nurse
that left her in a coma, and Bitter Chocolate is about child sexual
abuse in India. Once was Bombay is a collection of seven
non-fiction stories with themes varying from the history of the city
to analyses of its current state.
Pinki Virani is married to a fellow journalist and lives in Bombay.
- Writing Available Online
- Long
wait for justice. Pinki Virani reviews the film 'Bawander', which
deals with a woman who was raped as warning and revenge for her
grassroots work on behalf of child brides. The Hindu, 4 March 2001.
- The
redundancy of romance Indian Express, 7 July 1997.
- Interview
in womannova.com
- Interview
in India Today, 2000.
Bibliography
- Bitter Chocolate
Viking Penguin. (2000)
-
- Sawnet Review by Lata Narayanan
- Bitter
message. News report, BBC News, 27 July 2000.
- Review
in womannova.com
- Abusing
a trust
- The
most abominable crime, says Khushwant Singh in Tribune India.
- Review
by Seema Kumar in the Hindustan Times.
- Once Was Bombay
Viking Penguin. (1999)
-
- Sawnet Review by Susan Chacko
- Review by
Parmesh Shahani.
- Review by
Deepa Gahlot in The Rediff Reviewer.
- Review by Man
from Matunga
- Aruna's Story
Viking Penguin. (1998)
- Recreates the real-life tragedy of a young woman who set out from her
small village in Karnataka to be a nurse in Bombay. She was raped on the
eve of her wedding to a doctor, and abandoned by her family thereafter.
Utterly helpless, she was tossed between a convalescent home and the
hospital where she once treated patients back to health and where she
now lies, barely alive. The
crowning tragedy: Aruna's rapist, a sweeper in the hospital, walked a
free man after a mere seven years in prison for 'robbery and attempt to
murder.
- Virani
asks that nurse Aruna Shanbag be re-examined. Indian Express, 24
Nov 1998.
- Review in
Frontline by Vasantha Surya.
- Twilight
zone. Article by Virani in Express India, 30 May 1998.
