It was the fourteenth of February,
another Valentine’s Day.
In Mumbai,
people from across the city
gathered at the Aseesa Old Age Home—
singing,
dancing,
bantering,
planting anthuriums in the front yard,
enjoying camaraderie.
Here a teenager helped a crippled woman to her chair
There a young man patiently heard an older woman rant
Here a housewife recited Daffodils to a disoriented crowd
There a child handed over a nosegay of peonies to an old, frail woman.
The myriad ways
in which
love manifests itself.
