What is love?” Like Haddaway, I like to ask this question often, because each time it turns up a different answer.

Like most, I had Covid, and the misery and detention it brings. My friend Samina, visiting from Delhi, also fell sick while at our friend Parvati’s house. Recovered, she came to my place to pick up her bags—bearing a box of biscuits and sandwiches—ham and cheese, snug with butter, trimmed with care—from Parvati. It’s not that I didn’t have food. But it’s not about practicality. I ate it in bed, like a child eats at a picnic. It reminded me of how, when I had measles as a little girl, my dad arranged dinner on a fancy tray, like in a hotel, with two sips of Coca-Cola in a beautiful purple glass, the best Coca-Cola I’ve ever had.