Valentine’s Day: Mumbaikars on love in a post-pandemic world

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we invited five writers and an artist to share their take on love in a post-pandemic world

Valentine's Day: Mumbaikars on love in a post-pandemic world

I see love in a post-pandemic world as more enhanced and intensified. I see a world where we love more freely.

Intimacy matters

Without realising it at the time, I think one of the most romantic things I ever told my partner was, “I can’t wait to get used to you.” Being in a live-in relationship and entering the third year of the pandemic that was thoroughly tested during the pandemic when we were cooped up in a room for months. If you can come out of it a non-bitter person, you have succeeded way more than anyone who can make the best cup of Dalgona coffee now. So, for me, love in a post-pandemic world should make you prioritise what you hold dear and make you never want to let go. I hope more have learnt to readily give into intimacy rather than hatred. Importantly, the age-old adage of ‘Love is all you need’, though seemingly foolish, still holds its sway.

Room for Love - During the Pandemic

For my twin sister.
Love is a mirror
She is my mirror.
Not just in the way worldly mirrors work.
No, she shows me who I am,
beyond the filters of the gram
and the expectations of the family
and the ideas of the world.
She makes room for me,
all of me authentically
and let me see all that I can become.
She shows me love with the grace of a friend
And is every bit my better half, until the very end.

Space for love

Love is vulnerability. When you love someone with all your heart — your partner, your mother, your brother — you are not afraid to hold space for them, or to let them hold space for you. You allow one another to be your true, authentic selves, and are still able to say, ‘I love you’ despite the shortcomings and the flaws. ‘Love’, even when displayed in the tiniest acts of wholehearted acceptance, is brave. Love is vulnerable and hence, brave.

Slice

Open a winesap apple
you carry snow in your belly
a bird
named grief scrapes the sky
of your window for grain and
water tulips open their hearts
to the sun you see the light only
after it falls on a surface sugar
on toasted bread you return to
a quiet afternoon
you slept learn to hold
thunder and flower together you
cannot find love outside
the apartment of white walls the
moonlight thick over the Hudson
river put cold cream and
soften your hands trim your nails and
reach within there it
rests what you’ve been looking for
a cluster of grapes its juice
flowing down your feet

The escapades of Agent Green Glass

She looked at him. Her breathing was ragged. He held her eyes in his, as his hand reached out for her. She was sure he could feel her pulse quicken. There was a thin line of sweat trickling down his neck, disappearing into his shirt. She turned her face to him. For a second she looked unsure.

“I haven’t done this in some time,” she said.

“I know,” he answered softly. “It’s been a while for me as well.” She bit her lip.

Gently he said, “We don’t have to, you know.”

She took a deep breath, pushed the hair off her face and said. “No, it’s okay. Let’s do this. We will get out of the house tonight and we will go to a bar. And it’ll be okay.”
A smile lit up his face. “Ya, let’s do it, baby. Why one bar, let’s go to two.”

“Or ten,” she said as she laughed. Suddenly she stopped. She looked at him. “Tell me you have protection.” He grabbed the keys as he dangled their masks at her. “Tonight there is no stopping us.”

Aazar Anis