Author-entrepreneur Indira Lankesh passes away in Bengaluru

Indira Lankesh, 83, died due to age related ailments at her residence in Bengaluru on June 15 morning. She passed away in her sleep, sources said. 

She is survived by her daughter Kavita Lankesh and son Indrajith Lankesh and their families. Her eldest daughter, Gauri Lankesh, was killed by members of an alleged Hindutva cult in September 2017. 

Born on June 2, 1943, in Shivamogga, Indira got married to noted Kannada writer and journalist P. Lankesh in 1960. They later shifted to Bengaluru. While Lankesh resigned as a professor and took to making films and producing plays, Indira Lankesh supported him by selling sarees from her house. She eventually started Mayur Silks and Textiles, a successful saree shop at Gandhi Bazaar, in 1979. A year later, Lankesh started the tabloid Lankesh Patrike. 

Indira Lankesh’s memoir of her life with Lankesh Hulimavu Mattu Nanu, serialised in her daughter’s Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a pun on Lankesh’s autobiography Hulimavina Mara, is considered a landmark among memoirs by women in Kannada. 

Noted critic M. S. Ashadevi said, “Indira Lankesh, while facing challenges as a wife of a creative maverick and a successful man like Lankesh, was a self-made woman. Her memoir shows us the importance of economic independence for women. Lankesh did not even know that Indira Lankesh had bought a site and built a house till it was almost completed. They may not have been on talking terms for long periods, but their relationship was based on love, care and respect. I think by the sheer strength of her character, she brought in a change in Lankesh’s perspective on women. We can see some of the traces of this in the women characters in his stories, like Devi and Kallu Karaguva Samaya, who are very important women characters of Kannada literature.”  

Recounting her association with her friend Gauri Lankesh and her mother Indira Lankesh, Ms. Ashadevi said the death of Gauri Lankesh was a big blow to Indira Lankesh. “Though she was proud of what Gauri stood for, losing her first child was a tragedy she never recovered from. But till the very last day, she never lost her interest in life. After Gauri was killed, she even overcame cancer with a positive outlook. She used to get books delivered to her house and read a lot,” she said.