A Capital romance

They’d only been on a couple of dates when they decided to move in together. “There was going to be a lockdown, and I was alone in a city where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak the language,” says Kashika Gupta, a transaction analyst who moved from Delhi to Bengaluru for work in September 2019.

She and Karthik Yermunja, a Bangalore boy and a product manager at an electric vehicles startup, had really hit it off on their first two dates, and “I didn’t want to be alone through the impending lockdown,” she says.

Gupta gave up her flat and moved into Yermunja’s. “Nobody expected that the lockdown would last that long,” he says, laughing. “But it was a blessing in disguise, because we became flatmates first and then fell in love.”

In their first few months of sharing a space together, they learnt about each other’s quirks and different cultures. They cooked together, bonded over their morning coffee, and went on short staycations.

They started feeding stray dogs together, something Yermunja says he’s always thought would be nice to do, but never would have done on his own. “She is empathetic and passionate in a way that made me want to be that way too.”

Gupta describes him as “a walking, talking Wikipedia”, someone who has some information on almost anything she wants to know. “He has a weird interest in the World Wars and he insists on telling me about it,” she says, laughing. “I used to be a person who hated metal music... I still do, but now I understand it,” she says.

Even the clashes have been productive, they say. “We want each other to be better as human beings and with our extended relationships,” is how Gupta puts it.

Yermunja eventually introduced Gupta to his family, and Gupta told hers about him. He’s making his way to Delhi this weekend to meet them.

“The lockdown would have been so much worse if I hadn’t had her to spend it with,” he says.