What do I write about Gauri Lankesh? That she was one of most genuine, kind-hearted, sincere, loving and forthright journalists? That I cannot accept she has gone to a better place (undoubtedly)? That she fought relentlessly against social injustices? That she didn’t honour our pact of growing old together?
No, I must remember the vivacious, charming, truth-loving girl that I knew and cherished. Yes, I am going to tell you about Gauri.
I knew Gauri, her sister Kavitha and their mother Indira since we were children. Whenever I visited my uncle’s house in the then Journalist Colony in Bengaluru, we would meet. I remember her as a sweet shy child running around and playing with my little cousins, while I — older by five years — watched the antics of the little ones. She was a very pretty child, who never stood any nonsense from anyone.
We grew up in our own little worlds of school and college work, occasionally meeting at the homes of relatives. While I joined Bangalore University for postgraduate studies in Mass Communications, Gauri joined IIMC in Delhi.
Our lives reconnected again as full-fledged journalists working for different organisations in the early 1980s. Here was a grownup Gauri, enthusiastic about everything and ready to face the challenges of real journalism. We instantly connected. She and a few other journalist friends would land up at my little one-room ‘house’ almost every night after work. I still remember the conversations, fights, and discussions we had on just about anything that was making news all the way into the wee hours of the night.
Gauri would sometimes land up alone and we would spend hours chatting. She was just what I needed; to help me cope with youth-related angst, worries, uncertainties and other troublesome existential crises that every person goes through. She was one person to whom I could bare my heart and soul, and never be fearful that she would betray my trust. She just could not; she was such a beautiful and trusting soul. She would say “Mari, what is bothering you?” She addressed everyone to whom she was close as “Mari”. It hurts to write about Gauri in the past tense.
After her marriage, she set up a little house, close to her parents’ place in Bengaluru, but the meetings, parties continued almost every other day either at her place or mine. Our little group had expanded to around a dozen like-minded folks and those were the days. Work, work and relax with friends, Gauri was the glue holding everyone together, whether watching Halley’s Comet (on its last rendezvous with Earth), watching World Cup football, dancing to The Beatles or playing Scrabble. Gauri would sooth bruised egos in our inevitable political ‘debates’.
Gauri and Chidu (journalist Chidanand Rajghatta) shifted to Delhi in the mid-1980s, but our friendship just got better. We wrote to each other often (I still have a few letters from her) and she would come to visit or I would go to Delhi. We were two cosmic rays that ran parallel heading in the same direction and the universe made sure we stayed that way. Gauri and I made several trips to the Himalayas; just to wander sometimes (once we went up and up just to see snow fall, got off at a little village and played in the snow) or go white-water rafting in the Ganges (near Rishikesh) or even escape to unknown little places.
I remember one night lying on the pearly-white sands (it was those days) of the Ganges near Rishikesh tucked into our sleeping bags, teeth chattering (January is a cold month) and watching a total lunar eclipse once. It was a surreal experience! We felt so insignificant and humbled by the grand scale of the universe. “Mari, our problems seem so silly… Why do we have to complicate all issues?” Neither of us had an answer then.
She just could not digest the quirkiness in humans that breeds hatred, greed and irrational jingoism.
I remember bathing in freezing waters of a small waterfall somewhere up in the Himalayas (Gauri called it rainbow falls) as she watched out for Peeping Toms. No one was headed towards our secret falls, but just as I finished bathing, I heard Gauri hooting with laughter and pointing upwards. To my eternal chagrin, I found a little goatherd boy watching from the top! I started laughing with her! I remember hopping off buses in little villages to savour hot rotis at roadside dhabas. I remember her coaxing me to speak in Hindi with the villagers (I was terrible and she would laugh heartily). I remember zipping around Delhi with her on her scooter (people in Delhi gawked at women riders those days). Gauri was such a happy-go-lucky soul.
Journalists were badly paid those days (not that we minded, as it was a commitment to us those days) so we had to travel between Delhi and Bengaluru on trains (non-AC ones, mind you). Gauri and I enjoyed the nearly two-day-long journeys, playing Scrabble or Boggle endlessly. I remember a time when I was to return to Bengaluru and Gauri decided to accompany me. It was the end of July and the train journey was a nightmare. We thought we would roast alive in that oppressing heat. Gauri suddenly spied some travellers in the next compartment with an icebox, promptly went to them and asked for some ice cubes to save our lives. She put some ice on my head and said, “Now you won’t die”.
Gauri was my child’s godmother, although she used to tell me that she wasn’t much of a godmother as she rarely got to meet my little one. We drifted apart after she returned to take over her father’s legacy and I got busy in my motherhood avatar. We spoke to each other once in a while and met once in a couple of years even though we were both in Bengaluru. She had her priorities and I mine. We would call and speak when we missed each other.
I got to spend three days with her earlier in June in the strangest of ways; and we just took off exactly where we had left off. Two weeks ago, she called me in the middle of the night, just to talk. We did for a long time and that was the last I heard from my Gauri, the most genuine of all human beings I have ever come across.
Radhika Mahalingaiah – Firstpost
