Revisiting Self and Nation through Cultural Memory: A Study of Ved Mehta’s Vedi and Face to Face

Abstract

This paper will examine the interconnectedness between personal memories and shared cultural identity in the Ved Mehta’s memoirs Vedi and Face to Face. The relationship between autobiographer's personal memory and his cultural identity as represented in the autobiographies of Ved Mehta. According to the theoretical framework of cultural memory explained by Maurice Halbwachs and further expanded by Jan Assmann, the study explains how individual memories are influenced according to the cultural and social backgrounds. By means of textual analysis of the selected memoirs, it will be possible to see how Mehta, while trying to reflect on his personal history, creates a special relationship between his personal identity and his national identity. Mehta is known for writing about the autobiographer's personal experiences of being brought up, as well as his experience of blindness, and how he perceived various cultures surrounding him. His narratives reflect the connections between the cultural memory and personal remembrance of colonial and post-colonial India.
In this respect, it becomes clear that Mehta’s memoirs not only serve as autobiographies but also as the means for keeping memories and negotiating them. As such, the memoirs make the important contribution to the discussion on the ways autobiography works as mediation between an individual self and collective national identity. The paper explores the importance of memory in shaping personal identity and cultural imagination of the nation.