Indian

January 20th, 2017 Renu MehtaFeatured, Living comments

Dilip Mehta is Top 25 winner, filmmaker, Deepa Mehta's brother and an acclaimed photojournalist. Photo courtesy, Mongrel Media

He came to Canada in the late 70s and never looked back. Not a doctor or engineer or Chartered Accountant from India who required credentials recognition, Dilip Mehta did not have to rely on a survival job. He was a photojournalist who settled down very quickly in his adopted country and began his career taking images.

"I have never had a problem in Canada. I made a choice to live in Toronto near Casa Loma and was not ghettoised. There was no discrimination in my profession," says Mehta who was hell bent upon going to University South of the border but instead landed up working in a design house in Toronto.

"I was very fortunate to get a job in a design house in Toronto called In the Sunrise," he says. "The Canadian owners were brilliant graphic designers and said why don't you get experience learning rather than studying."

After a while, with the blessing of the management, Mehta ventured out on his own and opened his own studio. But within a year, not wanting to be confined within a studio space, Mehta, slung his camera on his shoulder and began to journey across Canada.

"I really enjoyed the experience and arrogantly began to dress like a photographer in safari jackets and combat boots, while learning the art. But later when I began to process the images I took, I found them to be so atrocious," admitted Mehta brazenly.

The challenge to develop his skills and art took him next to the deserts of Rajasthan where he began to develop a strong body of work and photographs. Back home in Toronto, several assignments were offered based on his images.

"I was asked to take photographs of the fountains in the city and the restaurants of Toronto," says Mehta.

But it was a huge struggle in those days, he says, when there was more film than food in his fridge.

"I was disgruntled and there was a British mafia in the industry, who would not let outsiders in. It was then that I decided to go South of the border to New York and of course had to do my own rounds of agencies."

A still from Mostly Sunny. Photo courtesy, Mongrel Media

He joined Contact Press Images, later winning international acclaim for coverage on Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the 1984 Bhopal tragedy.

From a photojournalist who got his first cover on Time magazine at the age of 19, to cutting his teeth with all the majors in the world, this Canadian has indeed come a long way. Dilip Mehta, who travels and works in Canada and India is now out with his latest venture – Mostly Sunny, a controversial documentary on porn queen Sunny Leone.

Over the years, the director and story teller has communicated through various mediums like photography, features and documentaries and his accomplishments can be seen through his work beginning with his directorial film debut The Forgotten Woman, Cooking with Stella and now Mostly Sunny. With such a diverse span of work, what has been this film maker's own voyage?

"It was tremendous being a photojournalist having worked with The New York Times, Newsweek and National Geographic," says Dilip Mehta. "It was when I was shooting about global warming in Maldives that it came to my mind that I had completed my journey. That it was time to move despite a very successful career. It was a premonition, no planned decision."

Soon after, inspired by his work on the sets of Deepa Mehta's Water, The Forgotten Women, came his way in 2008.

"This documentary is a compelling film about the plight of widows in India and fed my habit of journalism," explains Mehta

In 2009, Mehta ventured into comedy, directing Cooking with Stella, a lighthearted film set in New Delhi. And in 2016 and recently opened in theatres in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Halifax and Calgary, Mostly Sunny by the film maker showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The documentary, that took three years in the making, is about Canadian-born, American-bred Sunny Leone, who made the unlikely transition from mega porn star and "Penthouse Pet of the Year" to Queen of Bollywood.

The film follows Sunny (née Karenjit Kaur Vohra) to Sarnia, Ontario where she grew up in a conservative Sikh family, to LA where she lives with her husband/former porn star/business partner Daniel Weber and to India where she initially struggles to move into mainstream after starring in several adult films. Today, she has several Bollywood films to her credit including Jism2, Ragini MMS and Ek Paheli Leela.

Renu Mehta

Baisakhi Roy, originally from India, is a Toronto-based contributor to Canadian Immigrant.