Book Review: Lucknow Boy

At one point in Lucknow Boy, Vinod Mehta writes that he prefers brickbats to bouquets. Given this preference, he will possibly be disappointed with the reviews of his memoir because it’s difficult to imagine that there will be too many complaints about Lucknow Boy. Unless, of course, one asks the opinions of Dileep Padgaonkar, Pritish Nandy, Salman Rushdie, Narendra Modi and the other hordes of people who dislike Mehta and whom Mehta regards with equal distaste. However, for the average reader who isn’t involved in the many controversies that have dogged Mehta’s career, Lucknow Boy is inordinately fun. Scandals, spies, naming-and-shaming, an obstinate dog with a fondness for slippers and Parmesan, they’re all in Mehta’s memoir.

Mehta is among the most respected editors in India and known for being irreverent, outspoken and unabashedly opinionated. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he’s edited a girly mag, revived ailing newspapers, set up magazines from scratch, written books, been sacked, received praise and threats, and has had some of India’s most respected journalists—like Tarun Tejpal, founder of Tehelka, and Manu Joseph, editor of Open—working under him. Add to that a few years spent romancing au pairs in London, interactions with a range of politicians including Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi, a friendship with V. S. Naipaul, and a pet dog named Editor, and you get a life story that is as fascinating on the personal front as it is on the professional.

Mehta’s beginnings were humble. There were no illustrious family members who could be his social passport into the elite and neither did he show signs of genius as a student. Mehta’s sole academic credential is his B. A. degree, Third Class, from Lucknow University. While he went to England in 1962, it was not to acquire a post-graduate education. Mehta’s London years were spent devouring the British press and having his illusions about icons like Jawaharlal Nehru and William Blake destroyed. He also worked at dead-end jobs and indulged in a series of flings. In 1970, feeling homesick, he made his way across Europe and the Middle East (with a group of hippies headed for Goa) to return to India.

In the early parts of Lucknow Boy, Mehta lavishes his attention upon family, friends and acquaintances in both Lucknow and London. As his career takes off, his personal life fades out of the narrative. But you don’t really miss details like how his second marriage came about because the drama of Mehta’s professional life is sufficiently riveting.

After returning to India, Mehta came to Mumbai with a job in an advertising firm and found the time to write two books while working as a copywriter. In late 1973, when Mehta learned Debonair, an Indian attempt at Playboy, was going out of business, he wrote to the proprietor offering his services as editor. Mehta could do little about the aesthetics of the centrespreads, but he did add quality to Debonair’s non-photographic pages, with contributors like Ruskin Bond, Busybee, Saeed Mirza and Mario Miranda. Respect, however, eluded him because, as Atal Behari Vajpayee told Mehta, readers had to keep the magazine hidden under pillows.

After Debonair, Mehta built his journalistic reputation by starting up the Sunday Observer and then reinventing the Indian Post. He left the former and was forced to resign from the latter because of political pressure. Mehta then joined the Bennett & Coleman group with his team from the Indian Post to start the Independent, which would survive a mere 29 days on account of yet another bout of controversy. He was then appointed editor of the Pioneer, a newspaper with a glorious past and a dismal present. Mehta revived the paper but four years later, he was sacked because of an ego tussle. In 1995, Mehta set up Outlook, the first magazine with the temerity to compete with India Today. Success and controversies have dogged Outlook just as they did Mehta’s previous ventures, but with one difference: Mehta has remained as a fixture in the OutlookGroup for the past 16 years (and counting).

Lucknow Boy is a delightful read. Mehta’s prose is simple, richly sprinkled with humour and twinkling with provocative opinions. The book has an immediacy to it, as though you’re listening to Mehta tell his tale rather than reading a memoir, which comes as much from his crisp style as his remarkable candour. Mehta’s blunt opinions, whether it’s about Shobhaa De or Sonia Gandhi, stand out in the current climate of deception and diplomatic turns of phrase like a samba dancer in a room full of waltzing couples. With rare honesty, he admits to mistakes, whether it’s the Outlook report that completely miscalculated the results of a general election or the ex-girlfriend whom he abandoned when she became pregnant and chose to have the baby. Incidentally, the ex-girlfriend is the only person whose name has been changed in Lucknow Boy. No one else gets the benefit of a façade.

Lucknow Boy: A Memoir by Vinod Mehta, Penguin, Rs 499. Buy it from Flipkart.com.