Renowned Writer Gita Mehta Passes Away

Renowned writer-filmmaker Gita Mehta passed away. She was 80 years old. Mehta had written books including Karma Cola, Snakes and Ladders, A River Sutra, Raj and Eternal Ganesha. She also produced and directed at least 14 television documentaries for UK, European and US networks. Her film compilation of the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971, Dateline Bangladesh, was shown in cinemas both in India and abroad. Mehta’s books have been translated into 21 languages and have been on the bestseller lists in Europe, the US, and India.

Life and career

Born in 1943 to Biju Patnaik and Gyan Patnaik in Delhi, she pursued her higher studies in India as well as at the prestigious Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. An eminent author, documentary filmmaker, and journalist, Gita Mehta was the elder sister of Naveen Patnaik and businessman Prem Patnaik. Her publisher husband Sonny Mehta had predeceased her.  In 2019, she was given the Padma Shri award but she refused to accept it. Mehta was the daughter of Biju Patnaik and the sister of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik. She was married to American publisher Sonny Mehta, who died in December 2019.