He could be a role model for others who have been deprived of sight. But the question that irks me is how we can ensure that India and its reading public recognises and remembers extraordinary achievers like Ved. Ved was only a year younger to me, so I know that my clock is also ticking. While Ved is famous for his excellent writings on a range of subjects, it is this yearning for India and his friends in India that stands out in my memory of this friend. But miraculously Ved did not seem to find any of this intimidating. It was during his visits that one realised how unfriendly India was to those who had any kind of handicap - be it the lack of sight or limbs or any other deficiency - he uneven pavements, the awkward steps, the lack of railings. He was loyal to his friends - of whom he had a horde in India - both the ex-Oxford wallahs as well as those in art and literature. He was not only gifted with this transcendental sight, he also had a very warm heart. Mehta was long praised by critics for his forthright. He had some kind of a sensory gift that never made us feel that he was blind. India News: Ved Mehta, a longtime writer for The New Yorker whose best-known work, spanning a dozen volumes, explored the vast, turbulent history of modern India. Ved Mehta, celebrated staff writer at The New Yorker and acclaimed author, passes away aged 86. That to me seemed extraordinary about Ved. Despite the absence of sight in the physical sense of the word, it never seemed like he could not see. We had not really become friends, but knew of each other.ĭecades later, he came to visit me, and while he sat with us in our apartment in Jor Bagh, he could see. He was a student at Balliol, one of the best colleges of the university, and lived a full life. Yes, Indians did gawk at Ved, we are like that.īut Oxford had embraced him. “See there, the short man walking confidently”, said a friend while strolling in Oxford in 1959, “That’s Ved Mehta, he is completely blind but can ‘see’”. William Shawn, the storied editor, called him “one of the magazine’s most imposing figures.” Credit: Kunal Patil/Hindustan Times, via Getty Images | Image taken from NY Times He wrote for The New Yorker for more than three decades.
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