Valentine’s Day: Two stories of love that overcame all odds

Amidst chaos, love blooms. And these couples not just know it but have felt it in their quest for lifelong companionship. Interfaith couple Safvana Yasmine met Arjun through common friends. Three years elder to her, he was a senior at school and she was all of 13. “We both knew that we liked each other, but I was the first one to approach him,” says Safvana, adding, “I went up to him and told him that I knew that he loved me and I loved him too. However, I said didn’t think this was going to work out so let’s end it here.” This is how their story started.

“A year following the confession, we started dating and it gradually bloomed into a relationship,” she says. Safvana, a writer, and Arjun who is into cyber security have been dating for 10 years now. “We will be together for 11 years this April,” she quips. Arjun says that their families are still not okay with the idea of them dating and have been asking them to stop seeing each other for a very long time now.

On the other hand, queer and proud Debendra Nath Sanyal is happily living with his boyfriend Ankit Andurlekar for two years now. Debendra was 25 and Ankit 23, when they first met through a social media app.

“It took us around 3 days to meet because of our work schedule but we finally met at my house. The meeting was magical, we sang songs on karaoke, danced on peppy Bollywood songs, talked about our lives, drank wine, ate food that I had made. Everything about Ankit made me fall in love with him,” elaborates Debendra, a client servicing manager by profession.

However, things were not smooth for the couple. They too had their share of problems. For starters, Ankit was not out to his family. “There were sudden outbursts of pain and disappointment at his house which was emotionally draining not just for him but for me as well. It took a lot of patience to make them (Ankit's mum, dad, brother, and grandmother) to come to terms with Ankit's sexual orientation and accepting me as his partner,” Debendra says.