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Blind from the age of four, Ved Mehta, now 71, was born in India and educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities . He was a staff writer on the New Yorker magazine for over 30 years. His 25 books include classic accounts of modern India and studies of his family, as well as fiction. Three of his most recent books are The Red Letters, Dark Harbor , and Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . He lives in New York with his wife, Linn. They have two daughters, Sage, 20, and Natasha, 18. Sage is studying English at Princeton University .
SAGE: When Daddy was four, he became very sick with meningitis. His optical nerve was burnt away, so he was left with no vision. From then on, he lived as if he were not limited in any way. He knew if his mother was smiling or frowning by the sound of her voice. He could tell which of her friends was visiting by the swish of her sari and the sound of her shoes, by the smell of the spices she cooked with, or the scent of flowers in her hair. He's always been able to tell who's come into the room. He's never once confused my mother, my sister and I.
I was never conscious of my father's blindness as a disability; it was just part of his specialness. I feel close to him and have throughout my life. He is so much part of who I am that I feel if friends don't know my father, they can't know me. We're very similar. He is obsessed with neatness and efficiency, probably because his lack of sight makes his life so complex. He can't stand it when things don't get done, which is something he has imprinted on me.
I was always the one who described things to him. I'd tell him what a painting or a sculpture looked like, or the colour of the sky and the shape of the buildings. He's always asking me to put what I see into words. He wants to know everything, down to the colour and style of new curtains. It is he, not my mother, who has filled our apartment with beautiful rugs and antiques; just knowing they are there gives him a sense of being in control.
One of my earliest memories is of shopping for clothes with him. Clothes are a big priority; his suits and even his pyjamas are handmade, because he doesn't want to be judged visually. I have a good eye he's always relied on that.
It's very hard to read your father's books. I find it disconcerting to hear his voice, which on the page is so familiar yet lacking the authority it has in my life. When I read his books, he is my equal; whereas in my life, he's the person I go to for advice and who takes care of things. When I was younger, I wasn't conscious of his standing as a writer. I still know less about his life than people who've read him over the past 20 years. He reads by audio book and I have clear memories of hearing his work that way. I remember him telling us bedtime stories about his mother and his little sister, Usha, who would follow him around. There was another story about a kite that cut his hands, which, I realise now, he also wrote down. Everything in his life every person, every memory and every thought is poached and used in his writing.
Despite the fact he can't see, he has a sense of what things look like. When he meets a woman he can always tell if she's skinny or fat, beautiful or not. The resonance of the voice is a clue to weight. He may notice she's thin when he touches her hand and he can tell how she looks by the way she expresses herself. He can be very funny and not completely PC about these things. Sometimes he makes awful jokes.
My father is not a handsome man but I'd say he's a very beautiful man people recognise that and are drawn to it when they meet him. He's extremely direct in the way he talks and the way he listens. People tell him everything. About their marriages and their children, about their happiness and tragedies.
Although my father is incredibly independent, he's also demanding. He wants things his way and can't understand why everything can't be done now. He's not tolerant of inefficiency. I've never met anyone more organised and disciplined and driven. He has written for eight hours every day since he was 18. His big failing is that he cannot understand why other people, without his problems, aren't as efficient and on top of their lives as he is.
VED: I always wanted to get married. In India if you're not married you disappoint some god or other. I'd dream of having children. But I used to worry. Supposing I had a boy and he wanted me to watch him play football? How would I manage? But all Indians want boys, so during the delivery I reverted to a primitive emotional state; while my wife screamed, I prayed for a boy. When Sage was put in my arms and the doctor said, She has all her fingers and toes!, I thought it was such a fatuous remark. I was only interested in the kind of brain she had.
Dr. Spock, who was popular at the time, said that to bring up a happy child you should never say no. I remember telling this to one of my Oxford friends, who said: You're going to be presiding over the development of a monster. But I don't think we ever did say no to Sage. She was an exceptionally mild and gentle child. As an adult she's learnt to say no to herself, but it hasn't come easily to her. She has a wonderful eye and wants everything she sees, even when it's beyond her allowance.
She's a very stylish girl. When she was in eighth grade, she started wearing a certain type of shoe. Before long, the whole class was wearing them. I'd give her an old tie and she'd wear it like a belt. She has a way with things. My younger daughter, like my wife, is less interested. My wife can wear the same jacket for days on end without thinking twice about it, but Sage can change her clothes seven times in one day. I've always had the best clothes available, because I didn't want to be pitied, and I trust Sage's advice above anybody's.
I'm sure sighted people would think that not being able to see your child is a tragedy, but it isn't for me. I knew what she looked like from the moment I held her, and she was very beautiful. Although I've been totally blind since I was four, I live in the visual world. All day long, my references are visual and my first half-dozen books were written as if I could see. People in India talk in a visual way all the time. Look at that man what a beautiful colour blue he's wearing! Everywhere we went, my father would let me feel things, and so I have a picture in my mind of everything.
I had very long eyelashes when I was born. When Sage was born, hers were so long you almost couldn't see her face. Even before her features were fully formed, people would say: She's going to be a beautiful girl. I think beauty is a terrible burden, but ugliness is an even greater one. When I was a child, people would say: He's so handsome, but what a waste, because he is blind. As if somehow the two couldn't go together.
I have facial vision, which is a sort of sixth sense the blind develop to perceive objects and terrain through a kind of echolocation system. I hardly ever stumble, and maybe this is part of the same skill I have always been able to tell quite accurately what people look like. I've never failed to tell whether someone is fat or thin by their voice. I know, for instance, that on BBC radio some very fat women have played the part of Juliet. I don't quite know how I do this. I've spent many hours on an analyst's couch trying to find out.
It is very important that my children should never be haunted by the fact that I'm a writer. They shouldn't feel that they have to read my books or discuss my writing. Sage knows me in other ways. My mother never read my books either. Middle-class Indian people never pick up a book what Indians like is food and gossip. They don't like the solitude required for serious reading. Sage, unlike me, is incredibly sociable. She loves being with people. When I'm writing flat out, I can sit at my desk from 9.30 in the morning until 11.30 at night and hardly notice.
I was sent to a boarding school for the blind when I was five, and I felt abandoned. The result was I was always shy and thought nobody liked me. But Sage, whom we have brought up with every security, has this feeling that everyone loves her and they do. She's radiant, she's warm, she's thoughtful. It's been a blessing for me to have girls, because there's such a special relationship between father and daughter. It is wonderful to be one man with three women around.
Ved Mehta takes
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