Daddyji and Mamaji want to be read

One of the most prolific writers to come out of India, Ved Mehta, best known for his humorous and moving memoir of working at The New Yorker under the editorship of William Shawn, is in the country to promote reprints of autobiographical accounts inspired by his parents. He tells FYI what made his father a gambler, and why the imperialist leanings of his adopted country terrify him

How colourful can a family be? The average one could, possibly, inspire a writer to come up with a few short
stories at best. Not Ved Mehta's relatives though.
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His parents alone were fair grist for a mill that eventually churned out 12 volumes, written over three decades.

Titled Continents of Exile, the saga began with the publication of Daddyji in 1972, followed by Mamaji, and a further nine books until 2004's The Red Letters.
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Together, they form a poignant body of work by a writer much respected in the West, but surprisingly overlooked back home.

Thankfully, this state of affairs may finally change, as the series is being reprinted chronologically by Roli Books this year.

Born in Lahore on March 21, 1934, Mehta lost his sight at age 4 to an attack of Meningitis. His father sent him to a school for the blind in Mumbai, from where he moved to London and, eventually, America.
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It is there that he found his voice as a writer, starting with the autobiographical Face to Face in 1957, and following it with 24 books on everything from Anglo-Indian relations to the nature of blindness.

Now married, with two daughters, Mehta has been an American citizen for over a quarter of a century. He lives in New York, but is currently in India to promote the reprints of Daddyji and Mamaji.

Did writing them change the way he looked at his parents, I ask. "My perspective of my father shifted, but not fundamentally," Mehta replies, his voice soft but firm at the other end of a phone line in Chandigarh.

"My father lost everything in the Partition, and was two years from retirement, yet he allowed me to go to America despite the cost involved. He was a gambler, in the sense that he took a chance on me. I like to think it paid off."

Another reason why Mehta commands much respect is his 33-year stint as a staff writer with The New Yorker.
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What he wrote during those years helped America understand the Indian subcontinent a lot better. "India is now chic," he says, "but America is still very insular.

In high school, we were taught that America had no military ambitions. Today, I am mortified to be a citizen of a country with such imperialist leanings."

We move to a discussion on journalism in India, the standards of which Mehta refers to as sliding down a Gadarene slope.

"Television has become sensational and awful," he complains. "And I find it hard to get hard news in any newspaper."

Before hanging up, I ask Mehta how he would like readers here to look at his body of work. "Good writing always meets resistance," he replies.

"Maybe the reprints will lead to me finding more readers though, which is always good."