Happy Even 2020 had some Day, endings. On Valentine’s who found that meet couples love elusive of things — most lockdown — in the midst of a
Lway in 2020, as the in a rather literal ove was in the air meet in the pandemic. the safest place to internet became from on dating apps jumped The number of Indians according to to 31 million in 2020, 18.4 million in 2019 offline dates and forum Statista. With the German data of interactions table, the nature hook-ups off the Three months were talking more. changed too. People more people were exchanging Tinder found that volume and into the lockdown, up 60% in with conversations Okcupid messages than before, in India. just before the lockdown 28% in duration since go up by 12%. voice saw matches video and a 38% increase in
Bumble has reported when India since late March, calls in the 10 months eventually last lockdown that would announced a hard
68 days. their forced people to evaluate
“I think the pandemic to us all what we became clearer relationships. It change,” says and what needed needed in our lives at a relationship consultant Shahzeen Shivdasani, meaningful were making more
Bumble India. “People was completely as the physical aspect connections during the lockdown.” removed as people with uncertainty,
In a time riddled new connections reached out to form around the world were acquaintances, singles with neighbours, and relationships, they defined love also rethinking how and asking to the fundamentals returning to them, says counsellor what was most important therapist Arati Kedia. and dance movement took priority in and conversation
Companionship Dating, came before romance. many cases. Friendship drives, all-night old-school — long effectively, went treasured because simple moments phone conversations, was so far away. we the next meeting I’d been on where the first such date six “Our first date was Sinha, 29, one of the no filters,” Devlina actually talked, with in the pandemic. to who found love says her couples we spoke hero in me,” brought out the film my car “Trying to meet her of groceries into
31. “I’d load bags kitten partner Varun Kumar, them. Or take my
I needed to deliver and, if stopped, say going to the vet.” treated along and say I was rather than together and tackled, says Hurdles were faced 27, an only child, on. Joshna Joseph, first as a reason to move when she and unused to chores neatness she was disorganised 28 and a partner, Conroy D’costa, me moved in with her and helped patient and caring freak. “He was says. disciplined,” she become a bit more of the power is also a reminder
Each of the six stories so much would have been of love. “The lockdown it with,” Karthik had her to spend worse if I hadn’t our second Kashika Gupta. “On
Yermunja says of make me that he would always date he promised says it,” Devlina Sinha chai, whenever I wanted would “I think the lockdown of Varun Kumar. much it would have been have been horrible, Ankit had each other,” worse if we hadn’t
Parashar.
Dutta says of Nilanjana meet people who This Valentine’s Day, it in love and made met virtually, fell in the midst work, through a lockdown that even 2020 of a pandemic, proving happy endings. had at least some
Software engineer Sathish, 28, has been fascinated by iguanas since he was a child and first watched Godzilla (the 1998 sci-fi film about a giant mutant marine iguana). So when the Chennai Snake Park inaugurated its iguana garden on January 31, he had to go.
“I earlier saw a live iguana at the Madras Crocodile Bank but this was totally different. There was no barrier between us,” Sathish says.
The new iguana garden is a glass enclosure with a roof of latticed metal. Inside are rocks, trees and artificial water bodies that aim to simulate the natural environment of these reptiles from South and Central America. Visitors walk through the glass enclosure, amid the greenery, and are requested not to touch the large, friendly creatures, but the reptiles are so close, they’re certainly within touching distance.
“The iguanas were so calm. They barely react to human presence,” Sathish says.
That’s what park director R Rajarathinam likes to hear. The idea of creating an iguana garden within the snake park was to try and make people less apprehensive and afraid of these reptiles.
When the park shut for eight months in 2020, amid Covid-19 restrictions, it gave Rajarathinam and his colleagues the opportunity to rethink parts of the design.
Earlier, like the other reptiles, the iguanas had been kept in glass enclosures. The redesign uses an open space and open layout and invites visitors to view the reptiles up close, and even touch and feed them under supervision.
The park chose the iguanas for this openplan garden because they are “fairly friendly with humans, can remember their masters and even be toilet trained. This is important as that means it is both safe for humans and it is the type of animal that is not disturbed by a human presence,” says SR Ganesh, a senior herpetologist at the park.
There are 15 iguanas at the park, ranging in age from one to nine years. However, because they want the animals to remain as close to their natural behaviour as possible, the park authorities do not humanise them by naming them or petting them, Ganesh says.
Anusha NS, 30, an HR executive, was among the visitors who fed one, under supervision. She’d always been averse to chameleons, which iguanas resemble, she says. “But this was really exciting and fun. I liked how friendly and calm they were. One even ate some spinach from my three-year old daughter’s hand.”
The White House on Saturday called on China to make available data from the earliest days of the Covid-19 outbreak, saying it has “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 report were communicated.
National security advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement came days after a WHO team returned from Wuhan, China, the first epicentre of the pandemic, and suggested the virus might have originated with frozen seafood products, not from a Chinese lab as some have suggested.
Sullivan expressed “deep respect” for the WHO - which the US is rejoining after the Trump administration quit it to protest its virus response - but said protecting its credibility is “a paramount priority.”
“It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government,” Sullivan said.
“To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak.”
A member of the WHO team said China had refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.
The team had requested raw patient data on the 174 cases of Covid-19 that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert.
Meanwhile, the University of Oxford said it will begin testing the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with Astrazeneca Plc on children.