Gazal Dhaliwal is an Indian screenwriter who recently wrote the screenplay and dialogues for Vinod Chopra Films’ Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, starring Rajkummar Rao, Anil Kapoor and Sonam K Ahuja. Previously, she has worked on Alankrita Shrivastava's critically acclaimed Lipstick Under My Burkha as the dialogue writer and she wrote the dialogues and co-wrote the screenplay for Qarib Qarib Singlle, directed by Tanuja Chandra, starring Irrfan Khan and Parvathy. She also wrote additional dialogues for Wazir that starred Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar. She is also a public speaker and LGBTQ+ activist, who has spoken openly about being a transgender woman in several talks and in the media – most famously in an episode of the Aamir Khan-led talk show, Satyamev Jayate. Currently, she is heading a writers’ room for a leading streaming platform. Early life and education Gazal Dhaliwal grew up in the city of Patiala in Punjab and was born to Sikh parents Bhajan Pratap Singh Dhaliwal and Sukarni Dhaliwal. In several interviews and talks, she mentions how for as long as she can remember, she always felt like she was a girl. However, growing up in a culture that celebrated a highly macho form of masculinity made it increasingly difficult for Gazal, who was bullied with homophobic and transphobic slurs. At the age of 14, she secretly went to a counsellor, but was found out by her father, after which she told him about her identity. Gazal mentions that although her father acknowledged it, he thought that it was "a phase". When she was 17, cyber cafes connected Gazal to the internet, and she found out about gender dysphoria and sex reassignment surgery. However, it was a distant dream, and prevailing stigma and the lack of awareness pushed Gazal to run away from home and board a train to Delhi. However, she was terrified, and finally returned her parents' calls and promised to return home. Gazal went to the British Co-ed High School in Patiala, and then pursued a Chemical Engineering degree from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur. After graduation, she joined Infosys in Mysore as a software engineer. However, Gazal's passion lay in the world of Bollywood. In 2005, she quit her job and moved to Mumbai, studying filmmaking at Xavier Institute of Communications for a year, and assisted Govind Nihalani on an animated film script. While at Xavier's, she and a