Lucky Issar

Lucky Issar is an independent researcher and literary scholar. He is the author of ‘Exploring Caste and Sexuality in Indian Writing in English’ and has contributed scholarly articles and essays to publications including Critical Inquiry and Himal.

India’s great men and the neglected women and homes that made them

Gyanendra Pandey’s new book reads the lives of India’s great 20th-century writers and reformers through the home, revealing how domestic life sustained gendered hierarchies even as they relegated it to the margins

By Lucky Issar

/ 16 Jun 2026

Black-and-white photograph of Kasturba Gandhi washing Mohandas K. Gandhi’s feet as he sits on a low stool outside a Gujarat home.

Queer notes on Begum Akhtar

Caste, sexuality and tawaif subcultures in postcolonial India.

By Lucky Issar

/ 25 Nov 2022

“No Sasikala, please”

On the filmic representation of Jayalalithaa and what is lost in translation.

By Lucky Issar

/ 11 Mar 2022