Industry associates mourn Arun Mehta

Printing industry CEOs and colleagues pay tribute to print legend Arun Mehta who died on 7 July 2022. He was 81-year old and is survived by his wife Sudha and two children Bimal Mehta and Sangeeta Bhansali.

15 Jul 2022 | By Charmiane Alexander

Arun Mehta (third from left) at an event in Mumbai

Snant Shah, chairman Manugraph said, "I met Arun Mehta 20 years ago and I had developed a great admiration for him. He was a true friend, philosopher and guide. My wife and I will miss him a lot."

Lucknow-based Govind Bharagava said, "It is sad to know of the demise of Arun Mehta. He was a stalwart of our industry and it was a pleasure to have him around as the 30 president of the AIFMP whereas I was the 60th president of the AIFMP. Normally calm and collected, Arun Mehta very judiciously and tactfully helped me tackle a controversy in the Federation a couple of years ago. Truly a towering personality."

Former AIFMP president Kamal Chopra from Ludhiana said, "He remained the president of AIFMP for the year 1982-83. He became a governing council member of AIFMP in 1969 and his first meeting as GC member was at Ahmedabad.

Chopra added, He was a great visionary. In one of his communications in July 1982 he said, on seeing a graphic communication documentary that it used to be known as printing. With the advent of new technology, like telecommunication, satellite, laser, digitisation, electronics, scanners, etc. the print industry is going to be completely transformed. These were Arun-bhai's words in 1982. Hats off to him."

Kiran Prayagi, print technologist and guru said "Arun Mehta was a great and real printer. He was very knowledgeable about typography and colour pigments and dyes. During my first year college holidays, Arun-bhai allowed me to work at the Vakil and Sons plant at Ballard Pier.

Dev Nair, former president of AIFMP said, "My elder brother worked for this great man for almost 30 years." Dev Nair's brother was taking care of stores at the Ballard Pier unit. Dev Nair shared with PrintWeek that his brother passed away a fortnight ago.

Vimal Parmar said, "Vakils was where I learnt printing as an apprentice while I was studying at Bhavans. My interaction with him and Sudha Bhabhi was limited as I was in the process department. But his vision and the method of making magic at Vakils were the values which we imbibed. I remember we worked on several tri-fold leaflets that he had distributed as BMPA president."

Parmar continues, "Several years later after I joined TechNova (after Agfa Gevaert / Allied Photographical) I made it a point to go to Ballard Estate to meet Bimal and Arun-Bhai. I thanked him immensely for all my learnings at Vakils. After all, my quality journey started at Vakils."

Akil Contractor, who worked in the family-owned Rainbow Inks for 21 years before he embarked on his own enterprise Print Dynamic in 2002 said, "Arun Mehta was a brilliant man. He was an old friend of our founder and our eldest uncle Noman Contractor of Rainbow." In the 1950s some of the Bombay printers, which included GU Mehta, Naval Ardeshir, Nomanbhai Contractor, S Ramu, KC Raman Middleton, Jairambhai Patel, Framrose Poonawala plus many others decided that they should form an Association to take up the matter concerning the printing industry with the local government. They called it the Bombay Master Printers Association (BMPA).