Mehta's eventful life began on
the Asian subcontinent of
India, where he was born, and
where, at the age of four, he
lost his sight. He first came to
the United States as a student
at a school for the blind in
Arkansas, and continued his
education at Pomona College,
Yale University, and finally,
Oxford. Living in India,
England, and America has
given Mehta a trans-cultural
perspective on life.
Although
he officially became a United
States citizen in 1975, Mehta
counts many different cultural
traditions as his own.
Currently, he is both an editor
and writer for The New
Yorker magazine, a
publication to which he has
contributed since 1969. He
also continues to maintain the
prestigious Rosenkranz Chair
in Writing at Yale University.
It was in this fertile, brutal land, in the Punjab, up and down the rivers and along their canals, that the family tree of the Mehtas sent down its roots and spread...
In this passage from Daddyji,
a biography of his father, Ved
Mehta hints at the manner in
which the history of his family
and the history of his native
country, India, are inextricably
intertwined. Mehta is known
and highly-regarded for his
impressive descriptive powers
as a writer, and partly because
of this, his books have come
to serve as excellent studies of
middle class Indian life.
Daddyji, along with a
biography of his mother,
Mamaji, explores the two
opposing sides of Indian
society his parents represent.
His mother represents the
more traditional India,
whereas his father, a
physician, embodies a
Western influence.
Aside from his biographical
writings, Mehta is also a
distinguished political writer.
One of his most famous
books, Mohatma Gandhi and
His Apostles, carefully
examines the private and
political life of Gandhi, one of
India's great social and
political icons. His latest book,
Walking the Indian Streets,
offers a highly-detailed
account of the Mehta's return
to his native country after a
ten-year absence.
It deserves to be noted that
Mehta's works have been
translated into at least eleven
different languages.
Including Continents
of Exile, The New India,
Sound-Shadows of the New
World, Fly and the Fly-Bottle:
Encounters with British
Intellectuals, and many more.
Legendary for the long hours he puts in at his office at the New Yorker,in 1995 Mehta found time to put forth his new book, Rajiv Ghandi and Rhama's Kingdom,published by Yale University Press. He lives in New York City with his wife Linn and daughters Alexandra Sage and Natasha. Looking back at his life's work, Mehta told Jim Henry in an interviw, that he's not "trying to interpret India or bilndness or any of that. All I am trying to do is tell a story of not one life, but many lives--and through those stories, to try to say something that's universal."
Sources:
McKeown,Kristen. Copyright 1997 © The Bates Student, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine.
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