🌺Shashi pauses while kneading dough when asked what is the most endearing thing her husband does for her. She first gives a puzzled look and then she giggles. This is not the kind of conversation we usually have in the morning when she comes to make breakfast and lunch.
ꦑWhen pushed to answer, she says: “Since I am expecting, he buys fruits and milk for me and ensures I have both.” She laughs when the second question is asked—how did you meet your husband?
꧟She was just 14, living in a small village near Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, when, one day, her father informed her that she would have to marry Jagdish, whom she did not know at all, the year she would turn 18. They interacted for the first time on the day of their wedding. Jagdish was a complete stranger when she moved to Delhi. Over a period of time, she accepted her new life. To support her husband, who works at a hardware shop, she started working as a cook in a few homes in a middle-class residential society in East Delhi. At 22, she is a mother to a two-year-old boy and is expecting her second child.
ওWhen asked if she loves Jagdish, 25, she says: “There is no time for love. There are too many struggles and responsibilities. Most of our conversations are about how to manage home and take care of our children. We don’t have enough money for indulgence.”
🙈Do they have any plans for the upcoming Valentine’s Day? Shashi asks if it’s the same day when young boys and girls give each other roses, chocolates and balloons and says: “We have never celebrated on this day. We do small things for each other when we can. Like, this winter I bought a nice hoodie for him.”
After a while, Shashi remembers something and says: “Oh! There is this one thing that we do every year. We go for the Dussehra mela. We take the rides at the fair, eat chowmein, pizza, burger and shop. Maybe the Dussehra mela is our Valentine’s Day!”
꧋She accepts though that she wishes for things to be a little different. “Wish we could be more carefree. Wish there was more money for indulgence. Wish we could talk about everything under the sun and not just about the daily grind. Wish we could spend quality time together,” she says.
💝She lives in a basti in an East Delhi neighbourhood. Here, desires struggle to navigate through the narrow lanes, love flounders to flourish when four walls and ceilings jostle for space and heart-to-heart conversations get muted in the cacophony of everyday struggles.
🔜Shashi shares her one-room-kitchen flat with eight other family members. The kitchen doubles up as a bedroom at night. In the tiny household, two universal emotions co-exist—love and loneliness. Her sister, Kajal, who is married to Jagdish’s brother, is lonely despite being in a relationship. For her husband, Kajal and their three children are almost non-existent. Whatever little he earns, he splurges on himself. And alcohol. Though she has accepted her “lonely in a relationship” status, she does miss the emotional presence of a companion. “At times, I feel it’s better to be alone than being stuck in a situation like this,” she says.
ꦬThe stories of Shashi and Kajal resonate across many bastis. While people living here depend on urban pockets in the neighbourhood for their financial needs, their emotional needs are almost never met. Amid the drudgery of life, love takes a backseat and they often end up dealing with loneliness all alone.
***
ಞIn this age of swiping right to find partners, there exist many old-school love stories. Like this one—the boy falls in love with a girl, subsequent meetings take place secretly by the riverside in a village, friends are used as mediums of communication in the absence of a mobile phone and warring parents have to be dealt with before the ‘happily ever after’ happens.
🌳Shravan Kumar, 27, works at a small shop set up by his mother in a lane in a South Delhi neighbourhood. On a typical day, he is busy selling chips, cigarettes and cold drinks. But he takes some time out to share his love story. Shravan and Sapna fell in love when he visited his native village—Shahpur in Saharsa district of Bihar—in 2016 to attend a wedding. He was 19, she was 16. She had cleared her Class 10 and aspired to join the Bihar Police and Shravan was studying in a college in Delhi.
🅺When asked if it was love at first sight, Shravan nods in affirmative, Sapna says no. “I liked him though and told my sister about him. But he had gone back to Delhi. We have many common relatives. Whether he was invited or not, he would be present on important occasions like weddings. Someone was giving him all the information!” she says.
🌌The two would meet by the big river in the village and fell in love. With his meagre savings, Shravan bought a second-hand mobile phone for her. Since she was a minor, procuring a SIM, that too in the small village where everyone knew everyone, was a big challenge. The long-distance relationship continued for some time until one day Sapna’s parents found out about the secret mobile phone and confiscated it.
“Our lives are all about managing do waqt ki roti. There is no time for love. We don’t have money for indulgence”.
☂Unable to get in touch with her, Shravan mobilised the large network of friends and relatives and was heartbroken when he came to know about the mobile. For the next few days, their friends became the medium of communication. “Our parents were not letting us get married because we were too young. We considered eloping but we decided against it. We wanted everything to happen respectfully,” he says.
💃The two got married in 2017 and Sapna moved to Delhi. At 24, she is a mother to three children. When asked if she regrets marrying young and letting go of her dream of joining the Bihar Police, she says: “Maybe my life would have been different had I not fallen in love then. I cleared the exam, but could not clear the physical test. I could have tried again. But things changed. I have no regrets though,” she says.
ꦏTheir most prized possession—the humble mobile phone that helped in sustaining the long-distance love story.
***
𝔉Is the mush factor missing in modern love stories? Vimal Kumar Sharma, 40, who owns a small flower shop in the same lane where Shravan’s shop is, is convinced. On a January evening, he is sorting flowers and spraying water on the ones that are arranged in beautiful bouquets. Does he order red roses in bulk on Valentine’s Day? “Gone are those days. This shop has been here for the past 40 years. We have seen the craze for roses on Valentine’s Day. Even those who could not afford would buy at least one rose. Now, no one bothers much and I blame mobile phones,” he adds while cutting stems of bright yellow sunflowers.
▨He feels people are interacting too much and that has led to the demise of the mush. “Also, these days, people change partners like they change clothes. My wife and I have been married for 20 years. Our relationship evolved gradually. This is how should be. I have been taking one red rose for her for the past 20 years on February 14,” he says.
♚He feels that the nature of love and relationships has changed in cities. “In small towns and villages, more communication happens between two individuals and not through mobiles,” he adds, while fixing a bedsheet to cover the flowers to protect them from the dust flying from the nearby construction site.
Three workers from the site walk in to have tea at a shop. They are migrant labourers from Bihar. They completely dismiss the idea of love or loneliness. “Our lives are all about managing do waqt ki rotiဣ,” says one. Ask them if they miss their wives when they are away for work for months or if they feel lonely, they laugh awkwardly. “We get to meet them once in a while. That’s enough,” says the other.
***
🥀The residential society in East Delhi, where Shashi works as a cook, is a space where Seema and Seema—one works as a maid, the other irons clothes—get to bond and share their stories of loneliness. Seema’s husband passed away recently due to kidney failure. The two had been married for 22 years. She is struggling to deal with the sudden void. Her emotional support is Seema, who is stuck in a bad marriage. When asked how she is dealing with her husband’s absence, she says: “I often find myself folding his clothes. It will take me years to get over him.”
(This article appeared in Outlook’s Valentine’s Day 2025 special issue on love and loneliness in the era of technology. This appeared in print as 'Confined, Constricted')
