Ved Mehta
Ved Mehta was a renowned journalist and author known for vividly chronicling his life experiences and the diverse cultures he navigated. Born in Lahore in 1934 into a well-educated Hindu family, Mehta lost his eyesight at the age of four due to meningitis. His educational journey took him from a close-knit family environment to vastly different locales, including segregated Arkansas and Oxford University. Mehta's literary career began with his first book, "Face to Face," published when he was just 22, which recounted his childhood and family’s struggles during the partition of India, while also exploring his experiences as a blind student in the United States.
Throughout his work, Mehta skillfully created rich visual narratives despite his blindness, initially choosing not to disclose his disability. He later embraced this aspect of his identity, especially in his autobiographical works, such as "Daddyji." His extensive "Continents of Exile" series consists of eleven books, wherein he reflects on his life as an exile and the interplay of personal and cultural narratives. Mehta's contributions significantly enhanced the understanding of Indian culture and politics in the West, making him a distinctive voice in contemporary literature.
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Subject Terms
Ved Mehta
Journalist
- Born: March 21, 1934
- Birthplace: Lahore, Punjab Province, British India (now in Pakistan)
- Died: January 9, 2021
- Place of death: Manhattan, New York
Author Profile
Journalist. Ved Mehta told the story of his own life for most of his career. This story included the cultures in which he had lived. Mehta was born into a well-educated Hindu family in Lahore in 1934. At the age of four, he lost his eyesight as a result of meningitis. Mehta’s education took him away from his close-knit family and sent him to places that must have seemed like different worlds: Arkansas in the era of segregation, a college campus in suburban Southern California, and Oxford University. As a staff writer for the New Yorker and in his many books, Mehta made those different worlds, including the world of blindness, come alive to the reader.
Mehta published his first book, Face to Face (1957) when he was twenty-two. It was a highly readable account of his childhood, of his family’s sufferings during the partition of India (they had to flee their native city when it became part of the new Muslim nation of Pakistan), and of his experiences as a student in the United States. The central subject, however, was Mehta’s blindness and the ways in which he learns to be independent and successful despite his disability.
For many years after the appearance of Face to Face, Mehta allowed no hint of his disability to appear in his work, which he filled with visual descriptions. He published a novel and became a master of nonfiction. He wrote books introducing Indian culture and politics to Western readers; Mehta also wrote a series of books on the excitement of intellectual life. In books on history and philosophy, theology, and linguistics, Mehta made clashes of ideas vivid by describing intellectuals not only as thinkers but as people.
When Mehta returned to autobiography, beginning with Daddyji (1972), he stopped suppressing the fact of his blindness. Instead, he tried to make the things that had formed his identity—his family, his disability, his experiences at schools for the blind, and the colleges and universities where he studied—as vivid as his other subjects. His Continents of Exile series, which includes eleven books, began with the biographies of his mother and father, worked ahead to his graduation from Oxford (Up at Oxford, 1993), and concluded with All for Love (2001), Dark Harbor (2003), and The Red Letters (2004). In the series, Mehta presented the story of his life, always as an exile seeking his place in the world, with eloquence and frankness.
Bibliography
Embree, Ainslie. Rev. of The Ledge between the Streams, by Ved Mehta. New York Times Book Review 6 May 1984. Print.
Fox, Margalit. “Ved Mehta, Writer Who Illuminated India, Is Dead at 86.” The New York Times, 10 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/obituaries/ved-mehta-celebrated-writer-for-the-new-yorker-dies-at-86.html. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.
Leland, John. "At Home With: Ved Mehta." New York Times. New York Times, 22 May 2003. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Malcolm, Janet. “School of the Blind.” New York Times Book Review 9 Mar. 1986. Print.
Mehta, Ved. Interview by Stella Dong. Publishers Weekly 3 Jan. 1986. Print.
Slatin, John M. “Blindness and Self-Perception: The Autobiographies of Ved Mehta.” Mosaic 19.4 (1986): 173–93. Print.
Singh, Jai Arjun. "The Autobiographical Artist: Retracing Ved Mehta’s Long Career." Caravan. Caravan Magazine, 1 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Sontag, Frederick. “The Self-Centered Author.” New Quest 79 (1989): 229–33. Print.