“Now goddess, child of Zeus, / tell the old story for our modern times. / Find the beginning.” - The Iliad, translated by Emily Wilson 

The Friday morning service between Leuchars and Glasgow Station leaves at precisely 9:22 AM, early enough that the white sun splays high across the open fields that lie cold and withered under the station. In two hours and five minutes, the train traverses the southerly settings of Lanark and the Pentlands, crisscrossing across the snow-washed hills of Carstairs and Motherwell. Pine trees pop up every odd minute, perhaps hiding some strange winter creature, and the December light beats bright and blaring through the glass windows, tracing a smooth line across my forehead. 

It is the end of my first term at St Andrews, and I am making the trip to Glasgow for the first time, just days before my last exam of the year. All in all, the semester has gone well; every class is engaging, my friends supportive and kind, and evening band practice is the continuous highlight of the week. I have quickly fallen in love with the town itself, immediately entranced by the hidden corners and seaside shacks: the constant thrum of history that lies beneath the cobbled streets. Each time I skip across the PH inlaid on North Street, I look up to read about Patrick Hamilton, his place of death now a prolonged curse on the students of St Andrews. My friends and I crouch on the beach, hands cupped to our eyes, searching for the caves where bodies of witches were thought to have been found. In the middle of a lecture on Scottish religious movements, my professor leads us outside to point to the cathedral, silhouetted tall and dark against the blue sky. I am not just learning my degree, but living it as well. 

Through the initial four months of university, I’ve indulged in my love for history, slowly discovering where my specific interests lie within the admittedly broad subject. I have been particularly enjoying lectures and readings on colonialism, sexuality, and empire, but above all I have been looking eagerly for a way to be involved in some hands-on research. The Laidlaw Programme had been advertised school-wide about a month earlier, and it had seemed perfect: a rare opportunity for self-defined research in any project I designed, with a one-on-one mentorship under a professor. Therefore, let us return to the winter morning on the first Friday of December; the train gliding westwards, and me, bent over my laptop, trying to piece together a project worthy of submission. 

I am not alone in the train: my mom, or amma, is bouncing ideas back and forth with me. A few elements of my project are already clear; I know I want to focus on sexuality and gender history in the colonial era, and I am certain that I want to travel extensively as part of my work. Research, at this point, is not entirely new to me. By the time I joined St Andrews, I had already worked in UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library as part of an internship with a biographer, and I had also written a (admittedly rough) thesis-style project – 60,000 words on the evolution of queer literary representation and censorship. However, the Laidlaw project was an opportunity to truly dive deep and bring together the seemingly disparate interests I had been slowly developing. 

If I am entirely honest, it was my amma who first mentioned the idea that would eventually grow into my Laidlaw project. I had mentioned the possibility of building on my high school work on queer literature, when she mentioned a short chapter at the end of the project which I had almost forgotten about. While the project overall had mainly focussed on Eurocentric literature, I had included a brief addendum on the queer cultures of non-European mythologies, including Indian and Japanese folklore. At the time, I had expressed an interest in further exploring them, especially given my own identity as a queer south Asian individual. She reminds me of this now, and it kickstarts a thread that, over the following weeks, unravels into a project I will follow through the next two years of my life. 

“How come the past tense is always longer?” - Time is a Mother, Ocean Vuong 

Queer Lives of Asia: Bridging the Past and Present of South and East Asian LGBTQ+ Communities: a tongue-twistingly long title written in capital letters across my proposal form. It’s now late February. The days are slowly getting longer, and the stones peppered across North Street grow less icy every day. I’m sitting in Northpoint, reciting script dialogue with a friend, and I’ve just received an email notifying me of my acceptance to the 2025 Laidlaw cohort. Thankfully, I retain enough presence of mind to not drop my phone in the steaming hot pot of tea between us, but it’s a close call. 

Over the past two months, I’ve consolidated my ideas into a single plan, knitting together strands of interest and identity. As I’ve already mentioned, I had already developed an academic interest in queer history and culture, but that alone cannot, in my opinion, support a programme as long and personally involved as Laidlaw. In some way, I think research always stems from who you are. In my family, it’s certainly always been so. My amma, who is a neuroscientist, works on neurodegenerative diseases; my grandfather, her father, suffered for years from Alzheimer’s disease. My best friend, who grew up building and crafting with his grandfather, now studies mechanical engineering. Similarly, it was a genuinely personal story that prefixed my project. My grandmother, or paati, is an elderly Indian woman who grew up in a rural southern village. The eldest of several siblings, she married young, and spent her adult life first as a mother, and then as a caretaker to my late grandfather, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the last decade of his life. She is extremely religious, and lived for most of her in a temple house right in front of the Mylapore Kapaleeshwarer Kovil, one of the major centres of Hinduism in Asia. She is also one of the most accepting and open-minded people I know. 

I came out to my paati in seventh grade, with my mother acting as proxy. Coming out to my parents had been more than easy: in fact, I never really had to reveal anything in any major sense. My bisexuality was always treated as a natural, normal state of being, which is sadly an uncommon occurrence in south Asian families. My grandparents, however, posed a bigger challenge, and my mom had been wondering for a while how to tell paati, worried she would end up having to defend me to her own parent. We soon found out that this worry was entirely unnecessary: my grandmother responded with what is perhaps the most classically Asian response – date whoever you want, but focus on your grades first and foremost! When my best friend came out as transgender, he received a similar message from her. When I broke up with a girlfriend for the first time, she first inquired about my health, and then immediately asked me how my exam scores had turned out. 

Through all my experiences with extended family and friends from India, I have continued to receive more support from my grandparents than I have from people in my parents’ generation, or even people my own age. It has over time posed an inescapable question: countries like India are often considered inherently ideologically conservative, but at the same time homophobia and transphobia appear most deeply rooted in middle-aged people. If you look at Indian mythological texts such as the Mahabharata, often considered history, fluidity is both gender and sexuality is surprisingly common. One of the most interesting characters in the Mahabharata, Shikhandi, is what we would now consider transgender: he is born female, and makes a deal with a yaksha to change his sex.  

Laidlaw gave me a chance to see where my personal story intersected with my academic passions, but it was by no means a solo endeavour. My project, initially several interests grouped together in a flimsy hold, was now refined, largely due to the help of my supervisor, Dr Watson. Apart from having the best name a professor could possibly have, she was, from the beginning, my greatest supporter. We spent hours together, breaking down each component of the proposal into a purposeful action. By the time I received my acceptance, I had a clear path set in front of me: a mixed-media study utilising oral history and source-based research, taking place across the UK, India, and Japan. The title, although a mouthful, was the result of careful brainstorming. Queer Lives of Asia: a project that would always, at its core, be about people. 

“Let's look on the bright side: we're having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.” - The Princess Bride, William Goldman 

You may have noticed by now that I am introducing each section of this essay (if it can be called an essay) with a quote. These are not randomly selected, but instead from books or movies or songs that I have been reading along different points of my Laidlaw journey. Just now, I have inserted one of my favourite quotes from William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, a story-within-a-story about a princess, a pirate, a swordsman, and a giant, and the adventures we all must experience. 

It is March. I am sitting in a shuttle, next to my friend Celia, a copy of The Princess Bride open in my hands. We are on our way to a secret destination for a cohort weekend, where the twenty-five of us will spend our next few days building friendships, practicing leadership, and, as we would soon learn, exploring one of the most beautiful buildings in Scotland. Built in the early twentieth century, Hospitalfield was designed to be an art residence, overflowing with sculptures and paintings and old wooden pianos. It is located on the corner of Arbroath with a view straight down to the ocean, which is tempestuous and stormy in the early spring afternoon. It is not difficult to imagine painters sitting by the tall split windows, staring out to the waving fields below. 

For me, Hospitalfield was the place I learnt the how of research. I already knew what interested me, and I knew I had the drive to see my project through, but now I was learning how I worked: my strengths, my weaknesses, and the areas where I most needed to grow. Prior to the weekend, we had all completed an online DISC assessment, and we discussed the results together in Hospitalfield. I discovered, though not really to my surprise, that I was almost entirely placed in the Conscientiousness section, defined by an affinity for detail, a love for stability, and a constant search for perfection and quality. Conversely, I was weak in Influence: I often struggled to work in groups, and my peers were generally far more outgoing than I was. While I generally dislike personality assessments, the DISC results were surprisingly useful: as I approached the beginning of my research, I had a clear idea of what to focus on in my personal development and leadership.  

Work came on quickly after that weekend. Due to the nature of my project, I had to travel in my first summer, which meant I had to complete both ethical approval and travel approval within a few weeks of my acceptance into the programme. I also had to tackle what I still consider the most daunting part of my project as a whole: cold emails. The first segment of my work was entirely interview-based, and I therefore needed to find people to interview in both Mumbai and Tokyo. In total, I sent out over a hundred emails to organisations, individuals, professors, activists, students, parents – anyone and everyone relevant to the topic of my work. It was here, through all the hours spent hunched over my laptop searching for contacts, that I really learnt the importance of confidence in both research and leadership. Put simply, I had to take myself seriously for anyone else to do the same. I felt ridiculous at first: I was reaching out to people as if I was a proper researcher, trying to appear much more accomplished than I was. Gradually, though, I gained confidence in my own ideas, and I began to feel less like an imposter. There was no secret to it except time and repetition, but by the time I was set to leave on my trip. I felt far more settled in my project than I had at the start. 

Unlike the conventional Laidlaw timeline, where the first six-week summer is spent based at St Andrews, the introductory three weeks of my programme were spent abroad. My project officially began in Mumbai, India, where I interviewed several members of the LGBTQ+ community alongside their families. The majority of my time in Mumbai was spent at the Kashish festival, an annual LGBTQ+ film festival that commemorates upcoming queer cinema. Adventure is truly the right word for the experience: it was an extremely fulfilling time, but I also encountered a few notable challenges. Some were purely administrative: for example, I struggled at first to organise interviews in India as people were much less inclined to commit to specific meeting times, whereas in Japan individuals preferred to plan far ahead of schedule. To manage these situations, I learnt to be adaptable: I had to learn how to work on the move – quite literally! I began to carry my iPad and phone everywhere, contracts pulled up and ready to sign at any moment, whether at a cafe in Kyoto or crouched on a theatre staircase. It was difficult at first: I prefer to have set plans that don’t change, but flexibility proved to be my greatest asset throughout the summer.  

The main challenge I faced, however, concerned the research itself. In a history module, the essays set by a lecturer concern the module subtopics, and reading material is usually easy to find and accessible. While previous essays I had written had sometimes tackled a familiar topic in a new way, this project was completely different: very little work on the topic already existed. There are numerous systematic reasons for this kind of archival absence, concerning the makeup and oppression of archives. Imagine a puzzle where you are given only half the pieces, and you do not know what image you are trying to build; I found only limited readings on queer colonial history and almost no work conducted directly on India and Japan. The bulk of the sources I used came down to the interviews themselves, which meant I had to learn how to conduct proper oral histories for the first time. I was surprised by the amount of theory I learnt in the early weeks of my work: I focussed on oral history theory, archival theory, poststructuralism, and subaltern theory, all of which proved crucial to the project as a whole. This process, although challenging, led me to grow as a researcher and a learner; the skills I developed continue to shape my research today. 

It is impossible to discuss the first project summer without speaking about the incredible people who supported me. My supervisor, Dr Watson, who checked in constantly and was always reassuring in my moments of panic; my parents, my extended family who hosted me, my friends, and my Laidlaw cohort. During this time, we completed Active Learning Sessions with fellow scholars: while these sessions were undoubtedly an opportunity to reflect on our research, I also enjoyed the chance to connect with members of my cohort and share any concerns we had about our projects. Each member had certain strengths and weaknesses, and group activities allowed us to share our insights and learn from one another. Similarly, the leadership seminars hosted by Laidlaw helped me refine the goals of my overall work beyond the research itself. I specifically remember a seminar from Dr Paul Gardner about storytelling and connection; the session helped me centre the role of education and awareness within my work, which eventually led to the framework of my leadership summer. The Laidlaw conference, held later that year, provided an opportunity to share my work and to learn about other projects: one of the best parts of Laidlaw, in my opinion, is the variety of project topics. I was able to see how projects in various fields could intersect with my work: the intersectional view we gained added nuance and breadth to our individual projects. 

Beyond friends, family, and the Laidlaw community, however, I found my greatest insights into leadership came from the people I spoke to during my time in India and Japan. Leadership is a large word, and it is often thrown around with little clarity about its definition. Growing up, leaders were always well-known, highly influential people with global impact. My interviews completely reframed my concept of leadership. The most impactful, essential leaders I encountered were working within their immediate communities, advocating for themselves, their children, or their friends. They’re not on the news; they’re not invited to global conferences or making statements that will echo worldwide, but they are doing incredible work that I could never dream of attempting. Leadership, I learnt, is not always about changing the world. It can be about changing your pocket of the world – about trying to have a positive impact in a five mile radius. I spoke to two young women in Japan who are raising their son: they spoke to me about their journey to parenthood, and their dream that their son will never feel ostracised in the same way they did. I met with a mother and son in India: the son, who is transgender and nonbinary, is studying film, with the goal of one day creating the representation he never had. I sat with couples holding hands, friends with arms thrown around each other, and elderly parents with pride flags pinned to their shirts. Everywhere, I saw community, and it constantly taught me that I am not working alone. Leadership is inescapably a human effort. 

“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.” - Michel Foucault 

On my nineteenth birthday, I find myself once again on a train. I am heading this time not to Glasgow, but to the Kew Gardens National Archives, intent on viewing their collection of early modern sodomy trials. The building alone takes me aback: tall glass spiralling above a swan-dotted lake. At the National Archives, I will end up finding the court record that forms the basis of my first published writeup: the trial of Thomas Cannon’s Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d. My trip down to London is not for Laidlaw, but for a separate research programme hosted by the School of History. However, the two projects are connected; my inspiration to research early modern queer archives stemmed directly from my time spent on archival theory during Laidlaw research. Now, in the time between my two summers, I’m taking the chance to explore the various approaches and subtopics of queer history alongside preparing for the upcoming leadership work experience. 

From the time I completed my interviews, I knew I wanted to return to India for my leadership summer. During my trip there, I had been able to identify direct areas of need within the queer community, especially concerning outreach, sensitization, and awareness. The conversations I had with young adults and their parents in Mumbai largely framed the initial leadership project I designed, which featured a combination of workshops and educational modules targeting college students and their families. As the year turns over, I begin reaching out to various LGBTQ+ organisations across the city, some of which I had met with during my research, to ask about potential projects partnerships for the upcoming summer. 

The transition from research to leadership was, in truth, a difficult one. I will firstly say that calling it a transition is not entirely correct: elements of both research and leadership existed throughout the entire programme. There was, though, a shift – the first year was largely self-directed, intellectual study, while the second would be hands-on work experience. Over the research summer, I had grown assured in myself as a researcher: I was confident in my ability to research unfamiliar topics, having now had solid experience and incredible support from several supervisors. Leadership experience, especially collaborative work, was still an overall new experience for me. I knew it would require more assertiveness and self-advocacy than research had, and I knew I would be spending an extended period of time working in an entirely new cultural context. Put otherwise, I would be the youngest and the least experienced person in an unfamiliar room, and I would need to discover both what I could bring to the table and what I could learn. 

The first step was designing the project, a process that took much longer than I had (somewhat naively) expected. After pursuing a frankly embarrassing number of dead ends, I reached out to one of my summer interviewees, who had worked within an organisation called the Humsafar Trust. Founded in 1994, Humsafar provides counselling, advocacy, and healthcare to LGBTQ+ communities across India, with the goal of reducing violence, stigma, and discrimination. The organisation was already well-established within the Mumbai community, and they responded quickly to my inquiry. I was connected with their advocacy and research leadership team, and we went back and forth through the spring to craft a detailed project plan to be implemented in the month of June. 

The space between summers was dedicated to growth. We grow through the Laidlaw programme, of course, but the time in between research and leadership offered a chance to reflect on what work we had done so far – what had gone well, what needed to be done, what should be avoided. For me, my primary weaknesses were still in collaboration and adaptability. The interviews had encouraged a greater flexibility than I had previously demonstrated, but I still struggled with last-minute changes and extended teamwork. Additionally, I faced the challenge of working with people in an unfamiliar setting: I was navigating different expectations, different schedules, and, for the first few months, different timezones. Communication quickly emerged as the most important skill to practice – although I first felt pushy and overbearing, I quickly grew more comfortable asking questions, clarifying doubts, and clarifying my thoughts. The staff at Humsafar were incredibly patient and kind, and, with their support, we crafted a plan that was flexible and multifaceted, able to adapt to what Humsafar needed when I was in Mumbai. The nervousness did not disappear entirely, but I knew what leadership elements I had to prioritise during the upcoming summer: consistency, clarity, and constant connection. 

“I’m trimmed in memories as if in old furs. I lift my arm and the sleeve of memory covers it.” - Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand 

As I write this essay, I’m reading a book about translation by Jhumpa Lahiri called Translating Myself and Others. Lahiri, born in London to West Bengali parents, moved to America at three, and Rome as an adult. She speaks about the roles translation plays in her life, the early memories of addressing her parents – Ma or Mom, she questions – and the gradual tilt of her career towards translation. When writing about the process of learning Italian, she states that there are three roles of translation: “to open doors, to see differently, to graft myself onto another.” 

Translation, for me, is inescapable in India. I don't speak Tamil, my mother tongue - a fact I am embarrassed to admit, because I love learning languages. I’ve spent years on Spanish and Japanese, Greek and Latin, poring over Cicero’s speeches and hesitantly greeting konbini workers in Tokyo. But I don’t know Tamil, and I feel ashamed for it. I can, however, understand it fairly well, since my parents spoke it often when I was growing up, but every sentence requires an extra minute for mental translation. In India, with my family, that often means I slip behind conversation quickly: by the time I’ve understood exactly what’s being said, the topic has already changed. 

It does give me a moment to study the people around me, though. It’s the last few days of May, and I’m sitting around a glass table in Chennai with my grandparents, fingers sticky with mango and sweat. I haven’t been in Chennai in ten years, although it’s where my parents grew up, and every foray into the city reveals something new. Life in Chennai seems to be constantly moving: a hamster stuck on a spinning wheel, a clock running a couple minutes fast, a strong current sweeping your legs from beneath you. My hand, brushing stray hairs out of my face, is tacky against my forehead, a stark reminder of the steadily rising temperature. Everything here, from the dizzying pace to the sweltering heat to the smell of spices hanging in the air, is different from my small, sleepy town of St Andrews.  

Once I arrive in Mumbai, the work begins. I’ve been assigned to four projects at Humsafar: one, creating a research database of studies Humsafar has been involved in; two, writing and editing various sensitisation modules; three, creating an outreach survey; and four, editing a series of autobiographies written by local transgender individuals. Additionally, I’m designing a workshop on storytelling and self-expression to be hosted at a weekly community meetup at the end of June. The different components of the project draw heavily from the original outline I had created, but I find once I am actually in the Humsafar office, plans change rapidly, and I learn quickly to adapt and work wherever I am needed. My first two weeks are dedicated to the research database and the sensitisation modules: I carefully read through lists of academic papers from the last decade, summarising and collating a searchable database of any research Humsafar has been involved with. The sensitisation modules are more self-directed; my mentor, Suditi, gives me a list of focus audience groups, and I attempt to create personalised modules for each one. For example, modules designed for high school students often contain different content than ones created for legal professionals. I also work throughout on the outreach survey, a project that takes much longer than I initially expect. 

Through these first two weeks, I find myself focussing largely on collaboration and flexibility, two leadership aspects I had wanted to develop. I am working within a larger research team, and the elements I work on will directly impact someone else down the line – this is a stark difference from the previous summer, where my research was majorly self-inspired and self-directed. I learn to communicate frequently and clearly, to avoid miscommunications. For instance, I am working on the outreach survey with two other people – Suditi, my mentor, and another Humsafar intern. At first, progress is slow, because we each work individually and often end up re-doing what someone else has already done. After a few days, Suditi gently suggests I plan a call with the other intern so we can exchange ideas properly. Communication emerges as a central tenet of leadership, especially when working within a large, multifaceted organisation. Humsafar has several branches, all of which must work together at times, and I am continuously impressed by how well the team leads coordinate and communicate with one another. Flexibility, additionally, has been my personal goal from the beginning. I find it easy to get flustered when plans change last minute – but in India, plans can change in seconds. It’s truly trial by fire, and although I still feel anxious at times, I gradually learn how to be adaptable. I start to create outlines that can change, rather than ones that are rigid. I prioritise efficiency and clarity over hyper-perfection. Most importantly, I learn to always keep an open mind. 

The last two parts of my project, the autobiographies and the workshop, mainly take place over my final ten days in Mumbai. Working on the autobiographies poses a new, exciting challenge: as an editor, I must learn how to give constructive feedback to writers I have never met without changing their personal style. Communication is once again key, but this time, instead of coordination, I focus on expressing my thoughts clearly and concisely. I also develop my self-confidence: at first, I doubt every piece of advice I give, but by the end of the project I am confident in sharing my thoughts and edits. Editing the autobiographies is, by far, my favourite project I worked on with Humsafar, because it brings together the various aspects of leadership that I wanted to focus on: collaboration, connection, and communication. It is also simply wonderful to read the stories each author has written – they are heartbreaking and joyful and intimate, each one a glimpse into someone's life. 

My time at Humsafar also teaches me another essential lesson: not everything goes well. While the first four projects run smoothly, my workshop is unfortunately not as I planned. I realise afterwards that I had been working with the wrong target audience, and I should have been more intentional in advocating for what I designed the workshop to be, rather than agreeing blindly with what my colleagues suggested. Self-advocacy is still an important aspect of leadership I must develop. However, although the workshop wasn't perfect, I am still proud of the work I completed with Humsafar. Above all other aspects of leadership, I wanted most to contribute towards long-term impact, and I believe that I achieved that goal. Leadership is not always an individual push to greatness, or a position of power. At Humsafar, I was a small part of a larger whole, but I feel extremely satisfied to have contributed towards that larger whole. The outreach survey I helped design will provide an opportunity for queer AFAB individuals to communicate their needs and gain access to financial and emotional support. The sensitisation modules will be used in classrooms, workplaces, and offices to support LGBTQ+ students and employees. The autobiographies will help spread awareness of transgender identities and stories. None of them were solo efforts, and all of them are important. 

Work aside, the six weeks I spent in India were an incredibly special and complicated experience. My paternal grandfather was diagnosed with colon cancer right as I arrived, and he passed away just days before I left. It is difficult to speak about the complexity of my grief, but it was an extremely difficult time – not just for myself, but more so for my parents, who took care of him during his last weeks. He was always a massive supporter of my studies and my research, and I wish he had been able to see this project completed. I am happy he got to see me go to university, and that he could visit St Andrews, and I am extremely grateful I got to see him in April, during a last-minute trip back home.  

During both my Laidlaw summers, I fell in love with a place that I had previously had a very difficult relationship with: before Laidlaw, I had never wanted to come to India, and now I am always eager to spend a few more weeks in Mumbai. I learnt the beautiful streets of Bandra, day after day. I met family I had not seen in years. I found spaces that were both queer and Indian, not one of the other, a fusion of my two identities. I was reminded, over and over, that leadership is always about community, and I will carry that lesson with me throughout my life. 

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.” - The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 

Where do we go from here? 

One of my favourite passages from the Lord of the Rings is the walking song Bilbo sings when he leaves the Shire: The Road goes ever on and on / Down from the door where it began. / Now far ahead the Road has gone, / And I must follow if I can.  

I don’t know exactly where my road goes from here, but wherever it leads, I will carry my Laidlaw experience with me. In terms of skills, I have practiced my collaboration and my communication – both essential as I move forward in my academic and personal life. Additionally, through the Oxford Character Project, I have learnt the importance of character balance: too much of any trait, however good it seems, can have negative effects. I believe that I have become a far more collaborative, confident, and flexible person overall from the start of the programme, and I hope to continue developing my leadership skills throughout my time at university. I also find that I have become a much better researcher: not only has Laidlaw allowed me to discover my specific academic interests, but the skills I have gained from the Laidlaw leadership experience have made me more detailed, adventurous, and communicative in my research. Laidlaw has solidified my desire to pursue an academic career, and I hopefully will be able to centre education and representation in my future academic research.  

In terms of tangible experiences, Laidlaw has given me the chance to bring together my identity and my interests, as well as the opportunity to complete research in an area not many people have explored. My summer projects have taught me to work across cultures, countries, timezones, and fields, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the international aspect of the programme. Most of all, though, I have loved being part of a cohort. I wrote earlier that leadership is about community, and our Laidlaw cohort has been a prime example of that. I wish I had spent more time with each member, but I have nonetheless formed incredible friendships which I am certain will stay with me for many years to come. It all comes back to people, at the end of the day. 

As I officially move out of the Laidlaw programme, I plan to stay engaged with the organisation at both a university and administrative level. Apart from working with younger St Andrews scholars whenever the opportunity arises, I also plan to apply to the Laidlaw advisory board in October, with the goal of encouraging more scholars to pursue research projects in the humanities and social sciences. I am eager to see what projects appear in the next few years, and I hope to continue as an active member of the Laidlaw Foundation. 

I ask again, and I’m excited to find out the answer. Where do we go from here? 

The Thursday midday service between Mountain View and San Francisco leaves at 1:58 PM, late enough that the summer sun peaks in the clear blue sky, streaming through the streaked glass. In just over an hour, the train will pass through the suburbs of Palo Alto and Menlo Park into the bustling city, weaving slowly across the Bay Area. I watch the houses go by, small enough to be dolls, baking under the harsh August heat.  

Poetically, I am finishing this essay here, on the a train – just as my Laidlaw journey began. I didn’t plan it – it's funny how things work out! Before I end, though, I want to take a moment to thank several incredible people. Thank you firstly to my supervisors, Dr. Elise Watson and Dr. Jacob Baxter, for their encouragement and support. I am inspired by you to pursue a graduate degree and academic career in history. Thank you as well to the St Andrews Laidlaw Team for their guidance and kindness over the past two years. A tremendous thank you goes out to the Humsafar Trust, especially Suhail, Jayakant, Suditi, and Ravendra, for your constant work to support the queer community in Mumbai and beyond; I hope to work with you again soon.  

Thank you to my fellow scholars for being the most incredible cohort: it was a privilege to count myself amongst you. To my friends – Ash, Em, Lila, Celia, Henry, Niko, Maya, Aparna – thank you  for holding my hand and making me laugh. To my family in India, thank you for hosting me, and I am glad I had the chance to see you all. To Amma and Appa, I always knew you believed in me, but you’ve always taught me to believe in myself as well, and without that I would not have been able to complete this programme. Thank you, and I love you. Finally, thank you to Lord Laidlaw and the Laidlaw Foundation for their support and the opportunities they have provided us.