Gita Mehta’s works were always wonderfully scathing critiques of the world and its cuckoo ways The writer-filmmaker who passed away on September 16 was the sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
Important Days
“Do you know that when 70 million people determine to achieve something, nobody can suppress it?” Bangladesh President Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s words are like verbal gunshots at the opening of Gita Mehta’s NBC documentary Dateline Bangladesh (1971). Over the next two decades, Gita would move from film to writing, producing five insightful books of fiction and non-fiction. Married to the late Sonny Mehta, head of American publishing house Knopf, Gita lived in London, New York, and New Delhi. She was the daughter of late freedom fighter and politician Biju Patnaik and Gyan Patnaik, and sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. She passed away in New Delhi on September 16, at the age of 80.
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