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 through the intimate lens of his own autobiography, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 86.
The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Linn Cary Mehta, said. Associated with the magazine for more than three decades — much of his magnum opus began as articles in its pages — Mehta was widely considered the 20th-century writer most responsible for introducing American readers to India.
Besides his multivolume memoir, published in book form between 1972 and 2004, his more than two dozen books included volumes of reportage on India, among them “Walking the Indian Streets” (1960), “Portrait of India” (1970) and “Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles” (1977), as well as explorations of philosophy, theology and linguistics.
“Ved Mehta has established himself as one of the magazine’s most imposing…