Ved Parkash Mehta (21 March 1934 – 9 January 2021) was an Indian-born writer who lived and worked mainly in the United States.

Mehta was born on 21 March 1934 in Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan), to a Punjabi Hindu family.

"[10][11] His first book, an autobiography called Face to Face, which placed his early life in the context of Indian politics, history and Anglo-Indian relations, was published in 1957;[7] its narrative ends around the time Mehta enrolled at Pomona.

[12] He subsequently wrote more than 24 books, including several that deal with the subject of blindness, as well as hundreds of articles and short stories, for British, Indian and American publications.

[13] A 1982 profile, published after Mehta was announced as a MacArthur Fellow, stated that he had "gained critical note as a weaver of profiles, as an interviewer who can interpret character and context in the exchange of words with a subject.

"[14] In 1989, Jennet Conant produced an article for Spy reflecting on the alleged decline in quality of the New Yorker after the departure of editor William Shawn; recounting criticism of the new editor's "peculiar hobbies" including collecting "aluminium tumblers and plastic handbags", mockery and attacking of "previously untouchable" journalists including Renata Adler and Janet Malcolm, and the fact that "the legions of loyal, tight-lipped young women- the secretaries, typists, fact-checkers and editorial assistants" had begun to "talk.

Wail and complain" about "old wounds and ... past injustices", particularly those who were employed to "painstakingly transcribe" what Conant considered the "long-winded, self-obsessed, Oxford-educated English prose" of Mehta, who the article also accused of being unduly demanding and critical of the young women thus employed, asking them personal questions about their habits and lives.

A volume of the letters of one of those philosophers, Isaiah Berlin, contains an honest response to Mehta's inquiry about the reactions of his subjects: "You ask me what the reactions of my colleagues are to your piece on Oxford Philosophy... [T]hose to whom I have spoken are in various degrees outraged or indignant ...