Mehta - Lucknow boy: a memoir

A MEMOIR

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2011

Copyright Vinod Mehta 2011

Front cover photograph by Amit Mehra

All rights reserved

The views and opinions expressed in this book are the authors own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

ISBN: 978-06-7008-529-3

This digital edition published in 2012.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-533-6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book.

For Rajan Raheja, the prince of proprietors

An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.

George Orwell

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

At our 2 Aitken Road house, with mother, father and aunt, 1948

At a birthday party in Lucknow at our house, 1950s

Lying on the floor with my father, Lucknow, 1950

My grandfather B.R. Talwar (seated, in bow tie and dinner jacket) with Lord and Lady Mountbatten at the MB Club, Lucknow, 1947

Lucknow, 1949

At Hampton Court, Surrey, 1962

At my friend Azads wedding in Lucknow in 1971. Along with me is my elder brother, Ashok

Sunday Observer launch, 1981 (second from left is Rekha, my first wife)

Cover of Bombay: A Private View

With Sushmita Sen on a Karan Thapar talk show, 1995

With Arundhati Roy at the fifth anniversary party of Outlook in New Delhi

Being honoured by Lucknow University in 2009

With Sonia Gandhi and Rajan Raheja honouring distinguished social workers at the 10th Anniversary Celebrations Outlook of, 2005

With Bill Clinton at Rashtrapati Bhawan in March 2000

With George W. Bush when he came to India, 2006

With A.B. Vajpayee at Race Course Road, 1999

With the Obamas when they visited India, 2010

With Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi at William Dalrymples farmhouse, 2010. With me is my wife Sumita.

With Sheela Reddy at an Outlook party, 2007

With Behram Contractor in Mumbai, 1998