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“Where have you guys been?,” our loyal readers have been asking. “Aren’t you going to publish new issues?”

Well, it ain’t that easy. True, the most recent issue of Nirali was in July. But, uh, we’ve been busy since then.

The truth is, Nirali is one enormous labor of love. The wonderful staff and freelancers who contribute to Nirali don’t do it because they have to or because they’re paid to—they do it because they want to. That’s right—Nirali is an entirely volunteer effort. And after several months of putting out new issues with dozens of stories, we just sort of burned out on the whole process.

But we miss it, too. We miss bringing you stories that can’t be found in most other media. We miss knowing what’s on the pulse of South Asian community in the West. We miss seeing our readers debate our work in the comments. In short, we miss you.

So we’re coming back. But before we delve into the new stuff, we’re taking some time to celebrate some of our favorite stories over the years. In this issue, you’ll find the best of Nirali—everything from our story on M.I.A in 2004, before she was a huge sensation, to the essays on desi guys that had so many of you talking.

We’ll unearth these stories all month long on our front page. To cut to the chase and see the entire list of stories we consider our “Best Of,” see the topic page [2] here. If you choose to browse even further, you can see that we’ve marked all our favorite stories with the “Best of Nirali” badge.

So take some time to get to know Nirali again—and we’ll be back before you know it (or May, whichever comes first).

Ismat Sarah Mangla
Editor

Priya Patel
Creative Director