Ved Mehta

{{Infobox writer

| name = Ved Mehta

| image = Ved Mehta.png

| alt =

| birth_name = Ved Parkash Mehta

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1934|3|21|df=y}}

| birth_place = Lahore, Punjab, British Raj

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|1|9|1934|3|21|df=y}}

| death_place = Manhattan, New York, U.S.

| occupation = {{hlist|Writer|journalist}}

| language = English

| nationality = Indian-American

| education = Dadar School for the Blind
Arkansas School for the Blind

| alma_mater = Pomona College (BA)
Balliol College, Oxford (BA)
Harvard University (MA)

| genre =

| subject =

| spouse = {{marriage|Linn Cary|1983}}

| children =

| years_active = 1957–2004

| website = {{URL|vedmehta.com}}

}}

Ved Parkash Mehta (21 March 1934{{spnd}}9 January 2021) was an Indian-born writer who lived and worked mainly in the United States. Blind from an early age, Mehta is best known for an autobiography published in installments from 1972 to 2004. He wrote for The New Yorker for many years.

Early life and education

Mehta was born on 21 March 1934 in Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan), to a Punjabi Hindu family.{{Cite web|url=https://caravanmagazine.in/reviews-essays/autobiographical-artist|title=Retracing Ved Mehta's long career|last=Singh|first=Jai Arjun|date=February 2014|website=The Caravan|language=en|access-date=2019-12-30|archive-date=30 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230132718/https://caravanmagazine.in/reviews-essays/autobiographical-artist|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Mehta, Ved 1934–|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/mehta-ved-1934|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118154651/https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/mehta-ved-1934|archive-date=18 November 2020|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Concise Major 21st Century Writers}} His parents were Shanti (Mehra) Mehta and Amolak Ram Mehta (1894–1986), a senior public health official in the government of India.{{Cite news|last=Krebs|first=Albin|date=1986-07-29|title=Amolak Ram Mehta, 91, Dies; Former Indian Health Official|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/29/obituaries/amolak-ram-mehta-91-dies-former-indian-health-official.html|access-date=2021-01-11|issn=0362-4331}}

Ved lost his sight at the age of three due to cerebrospinal meningitis.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/garden/at-home-with-ved-mehta-in-a-dark-harbor-a-bright-house.html|title=At Home With Ved Mehta: In a Dark Harbor, A Bright House|last=Leland|first=John|author-link=John Leland (journalist)|date=22 May 2003|work=The New York Times|access-date=15 February 2009|archive-date=10 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110055116/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/garden/at-home-with-ved-mehta-in-a-dark-harbor-a-bright-house.html|url-status=live}}{{Sfn|Justman|2010|p=165}} Due to the limited prospects for blind people at that time,{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aiYOAAAAQAAJ&q=Ved+Mehta+-inauthor:%22Ved+Mehta%22&pg=PA304 | title = Learning for All: Curricula for Diversity in Education | page = 312 | author1 = Booth, Tony | author2 = Swann, Will | author3 = Masterton, Mary | publisher = Routledge | year = 1992 | isbn = 0-415-07184-4 | access-date = 22 November 2020 }} his parents sent him over {{convert|1300|mi|km}} away to the Dadar School for the Blind in Bombay (present-day Mumbai).{{cite news|title=Seeking the Light|last=Kendrick|first=Baynard|date=25 August 1957|work=The New York Times|url=http://www.vedmehta.com/reviews/face-nytimes.htm|access-date=6 November 2009|archive-date=31 July 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090731191007/http://www.vedmehta.com/reviews/face-nytimes.htm|url-status=live}} Beginning around 1949, he attended the Arkansas School for the Blind.{{Sfn|Slatin|1986|p=178}}

Mehta received a BA from Pomona College in 1956; a BA from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1959, where he read modern history; and an MA from Harvard University in 1961.{{cite news|title=When loss isn't' less|publisher=Financial Express|url=http://www.financialexpress.com/news/When-loss-isnt-less/538584/|access-date=8 November 2009|archive-date=23 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723024740/http://www.financialexpress.com/news/when-loss-isnt-less/538584|url-status=live}} While at Pomona, as very few books were available in Braille, Mehta used student readers, one of whom was Eugene Rose, who went on to become the Russian Orthodox hieromonk Seraphim Rose. Mehta referred to him in two books, one of which was Stolen Light, his second book of memoirs: "I felt very lucky to have found Gene as a reader. ... He read with such clarity that I almost had the illusion that he was explaining things."{{cite book|author=Mehta, Ved|title=Stolen Light|publisher=Townsend Press|year=2008|isbn=978-1-59194-095-1|page=160}}{{cite book|last=Scott|first=Cathy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tJbePAAACAAJ&q=father+seraphim+rose+cathy+scott|title=Seraphim Rose: The True Story and Private Letters|publisher=Regina Orthodox Press|year=2002|isbn=1-928653-01-4|author-link=Cathy Scott|access-date=22 November 2020}}

Career

His first book, an autobiography called Face to Face, which placed his early life in the context of Indian politics, history and Anglo-Indian relations, was published in 1957; its narrative ends around the time Mehta enrolled at Pomona.{{Sfn|Slatin|1986|p=178}} Mehta published his first novel, Delinquent Chacha, in 1966. It was serialized in The New Yorker.{{cite book|chapter=Mehta, Ved (Parkash)|editor-last=Moritz|editor-first=Charles|title=Current Biography Yearbook 1975|title-link=Current Biography|journal=Current Biography Yearbook: Annual Cumulation|publisher=H. W. Wilson Company|issn=0084-9499|oclc=609892928|date=1975|pages=269–272}} He subsequently wrote more than 24 books, including several that deal with the subject of blindness, as well as hundreds of articles and short stories, for British, Indian and American publications. He was a staff writer at The New Yorker from 1961 to 1994.{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Harrison|title=Ved Mehta, whose monumental autobiography explored life in India, dies at 86|date=11 January 2021|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ved-mehta-dead/2021/01/11/b2aba446-5420-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html|access-date=13 January 2021}}

A 1982 profile, published after Mehta was announced as a MacArthur Fellow, stated that he had "gained critical note as a weaver of profiles, as an interviewer who can interpret character and context in the exchange of words with a subject. He is scholarly and journalistic and, above all, a man who thinks things out."{{Cite news|last=Shepard|first=Richard F.|date=1982-07-15|title=VED MEHTA: HIS PROSE IS 'AIRY, ELEGANT, CLEAR' (Published 1982)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/15/arts/ved-mehta-his-prose-is-airy-elegant-clear.html|access-date=2021-01-11|issn=0362-4331}} In 1989, Jennet Conant produced an article for Spy reflecting on the alleged decline in quality of the New Yorker after the departure of editor William Shawn; recounting criticism of the new editor's "peculiar hobbies" including collecting "aluminium tumblers and plastic handbags", mockery and attacking of "previously untouchable" journalists including Renata Adler and Janet Malcolm, and the fact that "the legions of loyal, tight-lipped young women- the secretaries, typists, fact-checkers and editorial assistants" had begun to "talk. Well, moan, really. Sob. Whine. Wail and complain" about "old wounds and ... past injustices", particularly those who were employed to "painstakingly transcribe" what Conant considered the "long-winded, self-obsessed, Oxford-educated English prose" of Mehta, who the article also accused of being unduly demanding and critical of the young women thus employed, asking them personal questions about their habits and lives.{{cite journal|last=Conant|first=Jennet|author-link=Jennet Conant|title=Slaves of The New Yorker|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=MBsraeHJRB4C&pg=PA104 pp.104–112]|journal=Spy|date=September 1989|issn=0890-1759}} He left the magazine after, as he claimed, he was "terminated" by editor Tina Brown.{{Cite news|last=Kuczynski|first=Alex|date=1999-01-11|title=Media Talk; Writer Finds No Room at the Library|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/11/business/media-talk-writer-finds-no-room-at-the-library.html|access-date=2021-01-10|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=19 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170919115415/http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/11/business/media-talk-writer-finds-no-room-at-the-library.html|url-status=live}}

One of the articles he wrote for The New Yorker in 1961 consisted of interviews with Oxford philosophers. A volume of the letters of one of those philosophers, Isaiah Berlin, contains an honest response to Mehta's inquiry about the reactions of his subjects: "You ask me what the reactions of my colleagues are to your piece on Oxford Philosophy... [T]hose to whom I have spoken are in various degrees outraged or indignant ... The New Yorker is a satirical magazine, and I assume from the start that a satire was intended and not an accurate representation of the truth. In any case, only a serious student of philosophy could attempt to do that."{{Cite book|editor-last1=Hardy|editor-first1=Henry|editor-last2=Pottle|editor-first2=Mark|title=Building: Letters 1960–1975|date=2013-08-31|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4481-9134-5|language=en|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BcY1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 77]}} The article was published as a book, now including other public intellectuals, as Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals (1962).{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Companion to English Literature|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-19-280687-1|edition=7th|language=en|chapter=Mehta, Ved Prakash|doi=10.1093/acref/9780192806871.001.0001}}

Mehta's autobiography, titled Continents of Exile, was published in 12 instalments between 1972 and 2004. Its first volume, Daddyji (1972), is part autobiography and part biography of Mehta's father. Mehta became an American citizen in 1975.

Personal life

In 1983 he married Linn Fenimore Cooper Cary, the daughter of William Lucius Cary and Katherine Lemoine Fenimore Cary;{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=1983-12-18|title=Linn Cary, an Executive, Is Married to Ved Mehta, Writer, at Cathedral|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/18/style/linn-cary-an-executive-is-married-to-ved-mehta-writer-at-cathedral.html|access-date=2021-01-11|issn=0362-4331}} his wife's mother was a descendant of James Fenimore Cooper and the niece of Mehta's former New Yorker colleague, Henry Sage Fenimore Cooper, Jr.

A 1978 profile by Madhur Jaffrey wrote that Mehta regarded himself as "part Indian", "part English", "part American", and as an "expatriate".{{Cite news|last=Jaffrey|first=Madhur|author-link=Madhur Jaffrey|date=1978-06-11|title=Ved Mehta—Unique Documentarian|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/11/archives/ved-mehtaunique-documentarian-unique-documentarian.html|access-date=2021-01-11|issn=0362-4331}}

Mehta died on 9 January 2021, with complications from Parkinson's disease.{{Cite news|last=Fox|first=Margalit|date=2021-01-10|title=Ved Mehta, Celebrated Writer for The New Yorker, Dies at 86|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/obituaries/ved-mehta-celebrated-writer-for-the-new-yorker-dies-at-86.html|access-date=2021-01-10|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110213005/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/obituaries/ved-mehta-celebrated-writer-for-the-new-yorker-dies-at-86.html|url-status=live}}

Publications

= Continents of Exile =

{{Cite book|title=Daddyji|date=1972|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=0-374-13438-3|oclc=772323}}{{Cite news|last=Corry|first=John|date=1972-05-02|title=Ved Mehta's Private, Blind Universe|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/02/archives/ved-mehtas-private-blind-universe.html|access-date=2021-01-10|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233826/https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/02/archives/ved-mehtas-private-blind-universe.html|url-status=live}}
Mamaji. 1979.
Vedi. 1982.
The Ledge Between the Streams. 1984.
Sound-Shadows of the New World. 1986.
The Stolen Light. 1989.
Up at Oxford. 1993.
Haunted by Harvard. 2007 (written c. 1991).
Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing. 1998.
{{Cite book|title=All for Love|date=2001|publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press; Nation Books|isbn=1-56025-321-5|oclc=45909210}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ved-mehta/all-for-love-3/|title=All for Love|website=Kirkus Reviews|date=15 July 2001|language=en|access-date=10 January 2021|archive-date=4 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804141235/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ved-mehta/all-for-love-3/|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56025-321-1|title=All for Love|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Publishers Weekly|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233830/https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56025-321-1|url-status=live}}
Dark Harbor: Building House and Home on an Enchanted Island. 2003.
The Red Letters: My Father's Enchanted Period. 2004.

= Other books =

{{Cite book|title=Face to Face: An Autobiography|year=1957|publisher=Little, Brown|oclc=264119}}{{Cite web|title=Face to Face|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-3/face-to-face-7/|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en|date=1 August 1959|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233850/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-3/face-to-face-7/|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=Walking the Indian Streets|date=1959|publisher=Little, Brown|oclc=1005945330}}{{Cite journal|last1=Mukherjee|first1=Durba|last2=Chattopadhyay|first2=Sayan|date=2020-12-17|title='Walking the Indian Streets': Analysing Ved Mehta's Memoirs of Return|journal=Life Writing|volume=19 |issue=3 |language=en|pages=423–440|doi=10.1080/14484528.2020.1855089|s2cid=234505734|issn=1448-4528}}{{Cite web|title=Walking the Indian Street|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-8/walking-the-indian-streets/|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en|date=15 June 1960|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233844/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-8/walking-the-indian-streets/|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals|date=1962|publisher=Little, Brown|oclc=2628711}}{{Cite web|last=Czynski|first=Konrad|date=29 December 2011|title=Fly and the Fly-bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals|url=https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12131|access-date=2021-01-10|website=The Literary Encyclopedia|language=en|archive-date=10 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810121215/https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12131|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=The New Theologian|date=1965|publisher=Harper and Row|oclc=869281713}}{{Cite journal|last=Alexander|first=W. M.|date=July 1967|title=Review of The New Theologian|journal=Theology Today|language=en|volume=24|issue=2|pages=245–247|doi=10.1177/004057366702400220|s2cid=170253919|issn=0040-5736}}
{{Cite book|title=Delinquent Chacha|date=1966|publisher=Harper & Row|oclc=1406166}}{{Cite web|title=Delinquent Chacha|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/mehta-ved/delinquent-chacha/|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en|date=1 April 1967|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233822/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/mehta-ved/delinquent-chacha/|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=Portrait of India|date=1970|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|oclc=1086768025}}{{Cite journal|last=Gowda|first=H. H. Anniah|date=1972|title=Review of Portrait of India|journal=Indian Literature|volume=15|issue=1|pages=89–91|issn=0019-5804|jstor=23329810}}
{{Cite book|title=John Is Easy to Please: Encounters with the Written and the Spoken Word|date=1974|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=0-14-003707-1|oclc=16232076}}{{Cite web|title=John Is Easy to Please|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-10/john-is-easy-to-please-encounters-with-the-writ/|access-date=2021-01-10|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en|date=1 May 1971|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233849/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ved-mehta-10/john-is-easy-to-please-encounters-with-the-writ/|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles|year=1977|isbn=0-14-004571-6|publisher=Penguin Books|oclc=3167789}}{{Cite news|last=Johnson|first=Paul|date=1977-02-06|title=Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/06/archives/mahatma-gandhi-and-his-apostles.html|access-date=2021-01-10|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=21 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180221065027/http://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/06/archives/mahatma-gandhi-and-his-apostles.html|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|title=The New India|date=1978|publisher=Viking Press|isbn=0-670-50735-0|oclc=3167771}}{{Cite journal|last=Van Praagh|first=David|date=1979|title=The New India?|journal=Pacific Affairs|volume=52|issue=2|pages=315–318|doi=10.2307/2757426|jstor=2757426}}
The Photographs of Chachaji
{{Cite book|title=A Family Affair: India under Three Prime Ministers|date=1982|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-503118-0|oclc=8109459}}{{Cite journal|date=1982|title=A Family Affair: India Under Three Prime Ministers|language=en-US|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1982-09-01/family-affair-india-under-three-prime-ministers|access-date=2021-01-10|issn=0015-7120|journal=Foreign Affairs|archive-date=28 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181128041954/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1982-09-01/family-affair-india-under-three-prime-ministers|url-status=live|last1=Zagoriafall 1982|first1=Donald S.|volume=61 |issue=1 }}
Three Stories of the Raj
Rajiv Gandhi and Rama's Kingdom
{{Cite book|title=A Ved Mehta Reader: The Craft of the Essay|date=1998|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-07189-2|pages=|oclc=37870626}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ved-mehta/a-ved-mehta-reader/|title=A Ved Mehta Reader|website=Kirkus Reviews|date=1 August 1998|language=en|access-date=10 January 2021|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233840/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ved-mehta/a-ved-mehta-reader/|url-status=live}}

Awards and honours

Mehta received Guggenheim Fellowships in 1971 and 1977.{{Cite web|title=Ved Mehta|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/ved-mehta/|access-date=2021-01-10|language=en-US|publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110233852/https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/ved-mehta/|url-status=live}} He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1982, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Ved Mehta|url=https://rsliterature.org/fellow/ved-mehta-3/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715184000/https://rsliterature.org/fellow/ved-mehta-3/|archive-date=15 July 2020|access-date=2021-01-10|publisher=Royal Society of Literature}}{{cite web|title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows|url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305070326/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows/M/656|archive-date=5 March 2010|access-date=10 August 2010|publisher=Royal Society of Literature|df=dmy-all}} He received honorary degrees from Pomona College, Bard College, Williams College, the University of Stirling, and Bowdoin College.

In popular culture

The 2021 American anthology comedy film The French Dispatch by director Wes Anderson mentioned Ved Mehta as one of the inspirations for his film, among other writers & editors of The New Yorker in the film's final credit rolling scene.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/the-new-yorker-writers-and-editors-who-inspired-the-french-dispatch|title=The New Yorker Writers and Editors Who Inspired "The French Dispatch"|magazine=The New Yorker|date=24 September 2021}}

References

Sources

{{Cite journal|last=Justman|first=Stewart|date=2010|title=The Advertisement of Guilt|journal=Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal|volume=93|issue=1/2|pages=163–173|doi=10.5325/soundings.93.1.0163|issn=0038-1861|jstor=41200923|s2cid=246640983|doi-access=free}}
{{Cite journal|last=Slatin|first=John M.|date=1986|title=Blindness and Self-Perception: The Autobiographies of Ved Mehta|journal=Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal|volume=19|issue=4|pages=173–193|issn=0027-1276|jstor=24777662}}