| Book
extract: Page
1
 This
is the valiant autobiography of a blind young Hindu who found
in America the education and liberation which he could not find
in India. Blinded by meningitis at the age of three, Ved Mehta
never lost his aspiration for a full and vigorous life. His father
was a Western-trained doctor who ranked high in the Indian Civil
Service, and before he was thirteen Ved had been trained to read
Braille at a rehabilitation center for Indian veterans.
Ved’s boyhood was a time of loneliness in which his courage
was constantly tested. India makes little provision for the education
of the blind, and his inability to keep pace with his brothers
and sisters increased his determination to be independent. He
learned some English at home, and for the rest, he learned by
instinct—learned to ride a bicycle after many bumps and,
when the elders were not looking, to run over the roofs of the
family compound flying kites.
 Ved
shared the fears of the family clan when they were driven from
their homes by the Muslim uprisings of 1947. The persecutions
of this time came dangerously close to Ved’s family, and
the experience steeled the boy’s resolve to educate himself
for an active part in the rehabilitation of his country.
The United States was his brightest hope, and in his broken English
he typed out letters to every American institution for the blind.
Over thirty rejected his appeal, but the Arkansas School for the
Blind accepted him, and alone, at the age of fifteen, Ved set
off on the long flight to America. Since he had never used a knife
and fork, he was embarrassed to eat on the plane and subsisted
for forty-eight hours on orange juice, until he was met at Idlewild
Airport by the couple who were to befriend him during his first
month in this country.
In Arkansas, under the encouragement and instruction of Mr. Woolly,
Ved learned to move with a new freedom, and there he also perfected
his knowledge of English. He won a scholarship to Pomona College,
and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. There he
found that American undergraduates make friends with no thought
of color. One summer in Arkansas he worked in an ice-cream plant,
and learned to dive in a municipal swimming pool. During a college
vacation he dictated the opening chapters of this book; and he
also, when the spirit moved him, traveled around the country,
crossing the continent fourteen times, sometimes thumbing his
way. His appreciation of this country, which he sums up at the
close of the American section, is as moving a tribute as any foreigner
has written.
At the age of twenty-three, Ved had a scholarship at Balliol
College, Oxford, to familiarize himself with English history and
acquire that knowledge which will qualify him as he hopes, for
leadership in his own country. He is a staff writer on The
New Yorker.
This is a rich and varied book, full of life and color and vigor.
The personality of the author is the force that lifts it skyward.
Brilliant, modest, warm, sensitive and full of humor, he sees
the world—whether India or America or the lands between—with
a vivid perception that is granted to very few.
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Excerpted reviews
"The book would be memorable if it were only the story of one
man's courage and endurance. But it is more than that...Mr. Mehta's
book is admirably written. It is the work of a most vivid mind."
– Howard
Spring
Ved Mehta takes
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