Book review: 'Lucknow Boy' is an obscene and unsophisticated narrative
Memoirs are always interesting to read for the secret clues to the untold stories of the author's life. But Vinod Mehta's book Lucknow Boy: A Memoir is one such story but only in the name. Neither a scoop nor a package, it is an obscene and an unsophisticated narrative that will only bore the readers.
POLITICIANS ARE involved in evading and spinning, while a journalist’s job is to find the truth. That is where the 306-page book Lucknow Boy, written by a Lucknow man, Vinod Mehta has miserably failed.
Editor of the Outlook Magazine for 17 years, who also launched the Delhi Edition of The Pioneer newspaper in 1991 and also the editor of Debonair, the sort-of Indian version of playboy magazine in the 1970’s, Mehta’s book has been published by penguin Viking and is priced at Rs 499.
All the experiences that Mehta gathered in these newspapers were packaged in the form of a memoir. He might have missed the fact that the world he tried to describe during his trip down memory lane has changed drastically. It has made the narrative of the Memoir a little dull. In spite of the prevalent tone of underlying humour, there is the clue given in the book to visualize the proximity of politicians and power brokers to Mehta. He had the devilish ability to spot talent and new writing, a skill he perfected at Debonair. It was the typical Midas touch of Vinod, as an Editor or a columnist since his days in Debonair, but he could not upgrade and give them a noble height. Nor did he want to give them also. He showed some restraint when he talked about Indira Gandhi and her regime of Emergency. But the narrative during his meeting with V.C. Shukla during the Emergency is marked by fleshy indecency.
Once Mehta lost his job for an article published in The Independent in 1989. He was not a guy to learn any lessons from his experiences. While going to deliver a lecture on Journalism and journalists, which he feels to be his birthright, Mehta wrote, “Even today, I read any interesting piece of journalism twice — first to enjoy it and second, to see the craft.” But the memoir does not contain any sign of it. He never enjoyed anything with the temperament of Shakespeare’s Jaques. But he posed as Touchstone, which he rarely had been.
Rancour was a hallmark of his journalism. He sponsored one intellectual’s attack against the other. Even Satyajit Ray is not spared. Vinod allowed Saeed Mirza to attack Satyajit Ray. It is his sheer luck that he continued as Editor for so long time in Outlook. Salman Rushdie also took a bad review in Outlook personally when Mehta personally hosted a critical review of Rushdie’s book. It is not at all surprising that he wrote the longest chapter about his tenure of seventeen years as Editor in the Outlook, and on his relation with Atal Behari Vajpayee.
But it is surprising that in the name of reminiscing he spoke like a devil or like anything but a veteran journalist. Even his penchant for humour sounded sarcastic. Here he could not keep minimum restraint. All devotees, followers and fans of Vajpayeeji will feel embarrassed to have heard Mehta talking about him shamelessly like a young guy talking about some his drunkard in-law. Minimum respect was not shown and over smartness is too loudly clamped on the reader’s ears. But there could have been more focus on Indira Gandhi and Vajpayee regime on which he spilt much ink. “My relations with Vajpayee were good”, a candid confession of Mehta is there in the memoir. To him, Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star, he was never short of female company. Such open and loose talks about his acquaintances, and even about great political personalities who gave him attention abound in the book.
He was too much talkative and that too was a bawdy talk all over. He relished his own debauchery and even a love story of his personal life is dished out as an item story. True, we hear a little of Mehta’s personal life. Both his wives seemed to belong to low-profile backgrounds. One would like to sympathize with him, as they could not give him any issue. But the way he had described his love with the girl from Switzerland, is simply stunning. It is silly like the confession of the opium eater that his gravest folly was committed that time. That he was heartless in his relation with the girl whom he regarded as a sexual chattel is revealed in the narrative. There is not a single streak of repentance in the narrative dealing with his love for the girl. It was revelry in the flesh. The way he deserted her in her pregnant state is simply suggestive of his debauch nature. By frank confession in the memoir he did not repent it at all, he simply wanted to make it a good package. But it became an overdose for the readers. He could not meet that girl who gave him a child when his two other wives went barren.
Perhaps the best chapter could be, as the title pre-supposes, his childhood in Lucknow and his friends. It is frank, poignant but this too is as usual bawdy, particularly his recollection about the great Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri whom he mercilessly maligned for being involved in masturbation after he finished his beer bottle. All these are just bull-shits in the name of memoir and readers may get stunned to see the generosity of choice by Penguin Viking to have published such bawdy stories of a debauch. Nothing could be duller than his lecturing on journalism to the young and aspiring journalists. It would be better if they do not come under his tutelage. They seem to know and write about life better.
These are the so-called ‘interesting anecdotes’ in the Lucknow Boy, which neither are enjoyable for their songs of innocence nor for songs of experience. He did not deny that during his stay in London, he was freed of the illusions created by Blake’s idealism. The Radia–Tata tape or the journalist-politician nexus are all brought in the hold all memoir of Vinod Mehta. They are enough to bore the readers – even when these stories had ingredients to make them interesting like a scoop. That too did not happen. The neatness of the plot is missing and the nearly obscene and unsophisticated style of narration made things worse. People forgot the definition of the term ‘Memoir’. It was not even a table talk. It wouldn’t be an exxageration to state that Rs. 499 seem to be too much for such a worthless book.
Once Mehta lost his job for an article published in The Independent in 1989. He was not a guy to learn any lessons from his experiences. While going to deliver a lecture on Journalism and journalists, which he feels to be his birthright, Mehta wrote, “Even today, I read any interesting piece of journalism twice — first to enjoy it and second, to see the craft.” But the memoir does not contain any sign of it. He never enjoyed anything with the temperament of Shakespeare’s Jaques. But he posed as Touchstone, which he rarely had been.
Rancour was a hallmark of his journalism. He sponsored one intellectual’s attack against the other. Even Satyajit Ray is not spared. Vinod allowed Saeed Mirza to attack Satyajit Ray. It is his sheer luck that he continued as Editor for so long time in Outlook. Salman Rushdie also took a bad review in Outlook personally when Mehta personally hosted a critical review of Rushdie’s book. It is not at all surprising that he wrote the longest chapter about his tenure of seventeen years as Editor in the Outlook, and on his relation with Atal Behari Vajpayee.
But it is surprising that in the name of reminiscing he spoke like a devil or like anything but a veteran journalist. Even his penchant for humour sounded sarcastic. Here he could not keep minimum restraint. All devotees, followers and fans of Vajpayeeji will feel embarrassed to have heard Mehta talking about him shamelessly like a young guy talking about some his drunkard in-law. Minimum respect was not shown and over smartness is too loudly clamped on the reader’s ears. But there could have been more focus on Indira Gandhi and Vajpayee regime on which he spilt much ink. “My relations with Vajpayee were good”, a candid confession of Mehta is there in the memoir. To him, Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star, he was never short of female company. Such open and loose talks about his acquaintances, and even about great political personalities who gave him attention abound in the book.
He was too much talkative and that too was a bawdy talk all over. He relished his own debauchery and even a love story of his personal life is dished out as an item story. True, we hear a little of Mehta’s personal life. Both his wives seemed to belong to low-profile backgrounds. One would like to sympathize with him, as they could not give him any issue. But the way he had described his love with the girl from Switzerland, is simply stunning. It is silly like the confession of the opium eater that his gravest folly was committed that time. That he was heartless in his relation with the girl whom he regarded as a sexual chattel is revealed in the narrative. There is not a single streak of repentance in the narrative dealing with his love for the girl. It was revelry in the flesh. The way he deserted her in her pregnant state is simply suggestive of his debauch nature. By frank confession in the memoir he did not repent it at all, he simply wanted to make it a good package. But it became an overdose for the readers. He could not meet that girl who gave him a child when his two other wives went barren.
Perhaps the best chapter could be, as the title pre-supposes, his childhood in Lucknow and his friends. It is frank, poignant but this too is as usual bawdy, particularly his recollection about the great Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri whom he mercilessly maligned for being involved in masturbation after he finished his beer bottle. All these are just bull-shits in the name of memoir and readers may get stunned to see the generosity of choice by Penguin Viking to have published such bawdy stories of a debauch. Nothing could be duller than his lecturing on journalism to the young and aspiring journalists. It would be better if they do not come under his tutelage. They seem to know and write about life better.
These are the so-called ‘interesting anecdotes’ in the Lucknow Boy, which neither are enjoyable for their songs of innocence nor for songs of experience. He did not deny that during his stay in London, he was freed of the illusions created by Blake’s idealism. The Radia–Tata tape or the journalist-politician nexus are all brought in the hold all memoir of Vinod Mehta. They are enough to bore the readers – even when these stories had ingredients to make them interesting like a scoop. That too did not happen. The neatness of the plot is missing and the nearly obscene and unsophisticated style of narration made things worse. People forgot the definition of the term ‘Memoir’. It was not even a table talk. It wouldn’t be an exxageration to state that Rs. 499 seem to be too much for such a worthless book.
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