Gita Mehta
Indian novelist and film director (1942–2023)
Gita Mehta (née Patnaik; 12 December 1943 – 16 September 2023) was an Indian-American writer and documentary filmmaker. As a journalist and documentary filmmaker she frequently covered war and conflict including covering the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. As an author she published five books which were translated into 21 languages. Her works described aspects of life in India and were intended to interpret the country for a largely western audience.
Early life
Mehta was born in Delhi on 12 December 1943 in a Karan family, to Gyan Patnaik and Biju Patnaik. Her father was an Indian independence activist and a chief minister in post-independence Odisha, then known as Orissa. Her younger brother, Naveen Patnaik, later also served as the chief minister of Odisha.
She went to a boarding school in Kashmir at age three, when her father was arrested as a part of the Indian independence movement. She also studied at Woodstock School, Tara Hall, before attending Sophia College in Mumbai. She completed her education in India and at Girton College, University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gita Mehta” as indian novelist and film director (1942–2023). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as indian novelist and film director (1942–2023). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q538719. VIAF identifies the subject as 36952356. The Library of Congress control number is n79057798. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2023 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gita Mehta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.