Gauri Lankesh was the definitive activist-journalist, someone whose head and heart worked as one to encompass her life. Gathered here is a selection from Gauri’s writings, spanning languages, publications and the length of her career. It flags the unfinished work and uphill struggles that remain her legacy, but also preserves her companionable voice for us to cherish, a talisman and inspiration. She was taken away from us in the middle of life, of living busily, large-heartedly, and with a clear gaze on the world—the qualities that animate this collection.
Endorsements
‘There is a wild flower with petals like tongues of flame called Gauri hoovu. Our Gauri could be as severe as fire but believed that no revolution was possible with firearms’—Rahmat Tarikere
‘Even though Gauri does not live, her redoubtable mind will continue to reach out to readers everywhere speaking of freedom, humanity and democracy’—Paul Zacharia, in his Foreword
In the media
‘The Way I See It, a collection of some of Gauri’s best articles, and tributes paid by her friends, brings out multiple facets of the journalist, and provides deep insight into her career’—Outlook
‘The ideal she [Gauri] upholds in her writings is not party-oriented but more of a paradigm centred on the Constitution and the rights it guarantees, empathy for the underprivilleged and a visceral antipathy to all politics of hate’—The Indian Express
‘It is evident from this book that Gauri was strong, brazen, difficult and confrontational. But who can ever fault her for any of those qualities, especially when they were driven by a passion for protecting a secular, embracing and equal society?’—Scroll.in
‘As an editor, Gowda must be congratulated for including essays from people who constitute the world around her. It not only gives us a sense of her personality, but, and more importantly, it helps us see the events she writes of from another perspective’—Indian Cultural Forum
‘An unavoidable pathos surrounds the book and for weeks the cover, which has a portrait of Gauri’s bemused, warm, forceful look, has been staring unblinking at me’—Biblio
