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The Red Letters
The Red Letter, which happens to be the 11th and last book in the series of autobiographical volumes, begins with Face to Face, and the entire series has been given an "omnibus" title, Continents of Exile. As it is, the story of "the Red Letters" is told chiefly through Mehta’s long sessions with his father, though a few letters written by him to Rasil, a hill woman he had clandestinely come to love passionately, a love that he knew was immoral, illicit, and the larger number of letters she wrote in an extravagant, rich, indulgent style, so characteristic of Indian women having paramours form only a small part of the proceedings. The story which moves backwards and forward— from India to the USA and back, is, thus, mined out of his memories, grown ripe for his understanding of the human reality, of the zeitgeist or time-spirit, for as a writer from the age of 20, Mehta was launched on a massive project, and for this, he needed something concrete to dig his teeth into. The book carries seven chapters in addition to a Prologue, an Epilogue and Afterword, all the titles somewhat strikingly poetic, if not lavish. And the story told in 187 pages is crowded with characters who appear and disappear in the manner of stage "extras", while the chief protagonist, Ved Mehta, the story-teller, his father, Dr Amolak Ram, and Rasil, the hill beauty he was infatuated with, and — to a lesser extent, Mehta’s mother — constitute the heart of the narrative told in a fluent, flexible, vivid prose, so characteristic of the New Yorker Style — clipped, spruce, elegant. It’s a style which was honed into shape by different editors of the journal, and made unique and memorable, with distinctive signatures and address. When the story starts, Mehta has long been settled in the United States, working on the staff of the prestigious New Yorker, and his father is visiting America to be near his pregnant daughter, Usha. The son held a party at his apartment one evening with Mr Shewn, the Editor and his wife as chief guests. Dr Amolak Ram, a typical Punjabi, starts his praise of Ved’s work with heartiness and gusto, a thing his son finds distressing. It’s soon after that he learns how Dr Amolak Ram was planning to write a novel whose first chapter was already there in the form of notes. Gradually, he starts mailing them to his author — son, and Mehta, though not much impressed, finds the outline suggestive. The story within the story, then, starts — the love romance of a hill girl, Rashmi and Dr Chander, and Mehta soon suspects these characters to be no other than his father and his paramour, Rasil. It’s years later when in a Delhi Club, his father hands over an attache case with "the Red Letters", trusting his son to be discreet and cautious. Ved had many a doubt and scruple, but he was too close to his father to disregard his wishes. And it’s in this way the tale unfolds itself in shifting panels of narration. How Rasil came to be raped by some police officials and fell into the clutches of one rascal, Rai Sahib Pherumal, and how she crosses Dr Amolak Ram’s path, and is completely bowled over is clear from her letters tending towards mysticism in the end. They part and meet, and meet again over the years — all this happens before Mehta was born — and while his father dies around the age of 80 or so, Rasil lives on almost to complete a century of long, tragic, yet exhilarating life. An autobiographical volume that’s bound to create waves in India in so much as, it is a rare thing for a son to publish his father’s clandestine epistolary romance of amour. |
VED
MEHTA (born 1934) is widely acclaimed in India and abroad, and with 13
books to his credit, he has carved out an enviable position in the world
of letters. Gone blind at the age of 4, he was brought up first in
Punjab and Delhi, and later sent to Oxford and Harvard by his father, a
high official in the Indian Medical Service. Thus, his distressing
handicap in course of time drove him to creative writing, chiefly
through the medium of the ear, bringing his auditory imagination into
full play. But his muses, ever hungry for more details made him read
(through the touch system) some of the great classics and celebrated
works of modern literature, thus widening his mental horizons, and
nourishing his imagination of recovery and speculation, Mehta had set
out on a voyage of discovery—of the world without, and of the
world within. And this, finally, led to his discovery of his own
eager and aspiring self, and of the value of his parental love, and of
Indian culture. He travelled widely across India to write his book on
Gandhiji, and on India which helped develop his political, sociological
and religious perceptions.