Pride Month: Why you need to read these books that celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community

Every year people around the world observe Pride Month in June to celebrate the LGBTQIA community and their contributions to society While it also a time to raise awareness about their struggles to equal rights in society there is no better way to be an ally than learn more about their livesWhile there are many different mediums through which one can do that today books are the easiest medium to explore their lives in more ways than oneHere are some books by Westland Books to get you startedQueeristan LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace by Parmesh ShahaniThe reading down of Section 377 by the Supreme Court in 2018 has led to a fundamental shift in the rights of Indiarsquos LGBTQ citizens and necessitated policy changes across the boardmdashnot least in the conservative world of Indian business In this pathbreaking and genredefying book Parmesh Shahanimdashvice president at Godrej Industries Ltdmdashdraws from his decadelong journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a stepbystep guide to reshaping office culture in India He talks to inclusion champions and business leaders about how they worked towards change traces the benefits reaped by industry giants like Godrej Tata Steel IBM Wipro the Lalit group of hotels and many others who have tapped into the power of diversity and shares the stories of employees whose lives were revolutionised by LGBTQfriendly workspaces In this affecting memoircummanifesto Shahani animates the data and strategy with intimate stories of love and familyIt has no name by Payal DharlsquoAre you a boy or a girlrsquo Sami should be used to this question but it still turns her insides to ice And there will be a lot more for her to face when Ma and she move back to Chandnisarai a place where she was once viciously bullied But the town wrongfoots her from the getgo Her new school doesnrsquot insist on skirts and after some initial curiosity her classmates are indifferent to her severe buzzcut Sami finds refuge in the cricket club by day and discovers a whole new world of streaming television by night She even makes friends the levelheaded Laila the funloving Murad the mysterious Vidhi andmdashonlinemdashthe nameless Gaybe As Sami starts to be lulled into a sense of ease however old secrets and forgotten memories resurface She must make a choice but in doing so will she lose the friendships that are her lifelinesAn irresistible comingofage story of a gay teen in modern IndiaRadiant Fugitives A Novel by Nawaaz AhmedA dazzling operatic debut novel following three generations of a Muslim Indian family confronted with a nation on the brink of changeWorking as a consultant for Kamala Harrisrsquos attorney general campaign in Obamaera San Francisco Seema has constructed a successful life for herself in the West despite still struggling with her fatherrsquos longago decision to exile her from the family after she came out as lesbian Now nine months pregnant and estranged from the Black father of her unborn son Seema seeks solace in the company of those she once thought lost to her her ailing mother Nafeesa travelling alone to California from Chennai and her devoutly religious sister Tahera a doctor living in Texas with her husband and childrenBut instead of a joyful reconciliation anticipating the birth of a child the events of this fateful week unearth years of betrayal misunderstanding and complicated layers of lovemdasha tapestry of emotions as riveting and disparate as the era itselfTold from the point of view of Seemarsquos child at the moment of his birth and infused with the poetry of Wordsworth and Keats and verses from the Quran Radiant Fugitives is a moving tale of a family and a country grappling with acceptance forgiveness and enduring loveChikkamma Tours Pvt Ltd A Bibliomystery by UnmanaA fat lesbian partners with her boss she is crushing on to investigate the murder of a bookstore owner in Bengaluru When the owner of the bookshop above Chikkamma Tours gets stabbed to death in the building grumpy bookobsessed wisecracking whiskydrinking Nilima jumps at the opportunity to play amateur detective Whats more it seems like the perfect excuse to get close to her alluring boss Shwetha But to successfully investigate the murder Nilima also needs to learn to work with her annoying colleague Poorna and with Inspector Sharmila Lamani who is in a relationship with Nilimas exgirlfriend Braving the incessant rain a local gangster and sundry other shady characters as well as the police who seem intent on charging an innocent man Nilima Shwetha and Poorna are soon hot on the trail of the murdererNight in Delhi by Ranbir SidhuThere are no good people here And perhaps no truly evil ones A smalltime thief and hustler and his lover and pimp who is a rising star in Delhis music scene A lost American and acolyte of a socalled guru A young woman who hopes to save herself by becoming a boss in one of Indias new mafias And everyone floating in a world of shades of greyNo Place to Call My Own by Alina GufranAn intimate arresting portrait of millennial angst in a mercurial volatile world Feeling trapped in a society thatrsquos quick to undermine hermdashconstantly making assumptions about her religion sexuality ambition worthmdashSophia plunges headlong into a journey of questionable decisions through her twenties We follow her through cities and towns as she tries to make sense of the old while confronting the new But each move trails chaos in its wakeRestless and acerbic she struggles to come to terms with the disintegration of her parentsrsquo marriage eerily mirrored in the political turmoil of twentyfirstcentury India And crucial to Sophiarsquos storymdashwhich unfolds against the backdrop of the MeToo movement the 2020 Delhi riots and a global pandemicmdashis her complex thorny friendship with Medha a queer artist with travails of her ownHow does one even begin to fit in when apathy becomes a mode of survival How is it possible to truly belong when one feels estranged from oneself Sophiarsquos journey is not just her own but that of any young woman who finds herself caught lsquoin betweenrsquomdashunable to back down and refusing to conformmdashand who doesnrsquot quite feel rooted to one place or identityDeviants The Queer Family Chronicles by Santanu BhattacharyaFrom the critically acclaimed author of One Small Voice a bold electrifying story of a family in which three generations of gay men in India fight for love and dignity against the currents of their times A bold electrifying story of a family in which three generations of gay men in India fight for love and dignity against the currents of their times Vivaan a teenager in Indiarsquos silicon plateau has discovered love on his smartphone Intoxicating boundarybreaking love His parents know he is gay and their support is something Vivaan can count on but they donrsquot know what exactly their son gets up to in the online worldFor his uncle born thirty years earlier things were very different Mambrorsquos life changed forever when he fell for a male classmate at a time when and in a country where the persecution of gay people was rife under a colonialera law criminalising homosexuality And before Mambro came his uncle Sukumar a young man hopelessly in love with another young man but forced by social taboos to keep their relationship a secret at all costs Sukumar would never live the life he yearned for but his story would ignite and inspire his nephew and grandnephew after himAtypical Five Strategy Rules for a New World by Prateek RajA reflection on the current mode of capitalism and a call to action to rethink everything leadership strategy innovation and even progress itself What if the most valuable insights into your companyrsquos future arenrsquot buried in your big data or shared by industry expertsmdashbut voiced quietly at the edges by the very people yoursquove been ignoring In Atypical Five Strategy Rules for a New World UCL and IIMB professor Prateek Raj challenges the status quo by showing how the worldrsquos most innovative organisations learn from voices at the fringesmdashbe they marginalised communities unexpected collaborators or frontline workers