As my book Queeristan gets ready for release I am full of gratitude. To start with, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my boss Nisa Godrej, the wind beneath my wings. None of this would be happening without her support, and also the support of all my wonderful Godrej colleagues.
A special thank you to the 3 brilliant young individuals who have assisted with the research of the book. Prathyush Parasuraman spent 3 months helping kickstart the primary and secondary research after shifting to Mumbai from Bhubaneshwar and before becoming a Film Companion superstar reviewer. My amazing Culture Lab teammates Saniya and Nayanika took over after. Interviews, transcribing… citations. In fact the paper that Nayanika and I wrote in 2018 about trans inclusion served as a starting point for this book. My entire Lab team has been super supportive – and this book would not have come about without their contributions – so Dianne, Mukta, Koni and Pallavi – thank you!
A big thank you to the best publishing team in the world!!!! I can’t even begin to share how grateful I am to all at my Westland Books family – for believing in Queeristan, for lovingly nurturing it over the past 2 years and for actually entrusting it to launch the brand new Westland Business imprint!!!! Business un-usual, for sure 
🙂 As we get ready to launch our baby into the world, I am missing our times in the Westland Delhi office so badly…. can’t wait to see everyone again in person, instead of on Chime calls 🙂 Karthika, Gautam, Janani, Shweta, Arunima, Neha…the entire team and darling Vishwajyoti Ghosh for bringing us together and making it all happen…. lots of pyaar and hugs.
I owe so much to all the different educational spaces that I have been lucky to access. From just being able to go to good Mumbai colleges like Sydenham, Xavier’s and Bombay Teacher Training College to global programs like MIT, Yale World Fellows, the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Program and TED Fellows, that literally changed my life, I am truly grateful to all my professors, program coordinators and classmates. I have learnt so much from each of them and I try my best to share this with those I come across.
To my wonderful interviewees within Queeristan – thank you for all that you do. I am grateful to my family and friends – my village, spread out all over the world. But I am most grateful to each and every person that actually goes out and buys this book and puts their faith in it. It’s a strange kind of book – memoir meets manifesto meets guide. I hope that it entertains and inspires you if you do happen to read it, but above all, that it spurs you to action, to help create a more inclusive LGBTQ India, and world.