Ila Arab Mehta

Ila Acharya was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 16 June 1938 into a family from Jamnagar. Her father, Gunvantrai Acharya, was a celebrated Gujarati novelist, and her younger sister, Varsha Adalja, also became a noted novelist. Ila went to school in Jamnagar, Rajkot and Mumbai, and as a student she wrote for Gujarati magazines such as Akhand Anand, Navneet and Stree Jeevan. One Gujarati report gives her birth date as 23 June 1938, but the Sahitya Akademi chronology, Wikipedia and BBC Gujarati all give 16 June 1938.

After her SSC she joined Ramnarain Ruia College in Mumbai and earned a BA in Gujarati and Sanskrit with first division in 1958, receiving the Tuljagauri Krishnalal Zaveri scholarship. She completed an MA in the same subjects in 1960. As a student she won many elocution prizes.

She taught Gujarati at Ruia College from 1960 to 1967. In 1965 she edited Samsar Chakra in the Mumbai Gujarati daily Janma Bhoomi Pravasi. When her father died suddenly in 1965, the family asked her to complete his unfinished novel Ramat Ramade Ram, and she wrote its last chapters in a fortnight. That marked the start of her own career as a novelist. Her first novel, Trikonani Tran Rekhao, appeared in 1969. From 1966 to 1970 she stayed at home with her children, then joined St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, as a lecturer in Gujarati in 1971, teaching until 2000. She also wrote radio and television plays. Major titles include Radha (1972), Ek Hata Diwan Bahadur (1976), Batris Putlini Vedana (1982), Dariyano Manas (1985), Vasant Chhalke (1987), Parpotani Aankh (1988), Paanch Pagla Prithvi Par (1995), Nag Pariksha (1995), The New Life (2004), Zili Main Kumpal Hatheliman (2006 to 2007) and Vaad.

Batris Putlini Vedana (1982) is the novel she is most remembered for. It centres on a woman's search for her own identity. Critic Chandrakant Topiwala, quoted by Bombay Samachar, called it the first woman-centred novel in Gujarati literature, and BBC Gujarati called it the first artistic Gujarati novel to voice a woman's search for selfhood. It received the Darshak Award. Her novel Vaad was translated into English by Rita Kothari and published as Fence in 2015, giving her work a wider readership.

Her short story collections include Ek Cigarette Ek Dhupsali (1981), Vienna Woods (1989), Bhagya Rekha (1991), Balvo Balvi Balvun, Yom Kippur (2006) and Ila Arab Mehtano Varta Vaibhav (2009). Many stories were set far from Gujarat, in Israel, Africa and Europe. She compiled Mrityu Naam Parpoto Mare (1984), a collection of writings on death by various authors, and edited Varsha Adaljani Shreshth Vartao (1991), a selection of her sister's stories.

In 1964 she married Dr Arab Mehta, a doctor with M.D., F.R.C.S. and M.R.C.O.G. qualifications. She kept her husband's name joined to her own throughout her writing life. The couple had a son, Dr Salil Mehta, and a daughter, Sonali. She lived in Mumbai and was known as gentle and quiet, preferring her desk to literary gatherings.

Her fiction is widely described as feminist, though she approached it through everyday lives rather than slogans. BBC Gujarati wrote that her stories and novels mostly dealt with women trapped in daily routines, exploited, and struggling to find their own way. She guarded her time for reading and writing, rising at four in the morning to write. Her guiding phrase was "Live and let live".

Radha won second prize from the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in 1973. Ane Mrityu (1979), Ek Cigarette Ek Dhupsali (1981) and Vienna Woods (1989) were also honoured by the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad. Parpotani Aankh received the Bhagwati Nivedita Prize in 1988. The New Life won second prize from the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi and first prize from the Maharashtra Gujarati Sahitya Akademi in 2004, and Yom Kippur (2006) and Zili Main Kumpal Hatheliman (2007) also won first prizes in Maharashtra. Batris Putlini Vedana received the Darshak Award. In 2000 the Gujarati Literary Academy, UK, invited and honoured her in London, and in 2011 the Sahitya Akademi featured her in its Meet the Author series.

She is remembered as a pioneer of women-centred fiction in Gujarati and as part of a remarkable literary family with her father Gunvantrai Acharya and her sister Varsha Adalja. Readers and critics continue to discuss Batris Putlini Vedana on video and in print.

Ila Arab Mehta died in Mumbai on 6 October 2026, aged 88. Her son Dr Salil Mehta confirmed her death. Her funeral was held on 7 October 2026 at the Santacruz Hindu crematorium on Dattatray Road, Santacruz West, Mumbai. The cause of death was not made public. Tributes came from Gujarati newspapers, BBC Gujarati, Rekhta Gujarati and readers across Gujarat and Mumbai.