Situationships. Nanoships. Text-lationships. Benching.
Love today comes with a vocabulary that feels more exhausting than expressive. Everything needs defining, categorising, clarifying, until feeling something starts to feel like work. And Valentine’s Day, inevitably, arrives carrying its own quiet pressure. To perform love. To explain it. To defend it.
But the truth is, love itself isn’t complicated. We are.
We’ve always known this. We romanticise rain because of a song. A moving performance brings tears without warning. A guitar by a bonfire, played badly but honestly, can make the world feel briefly manageable. A handmade painting can say what words never manage to. These aren’t coincidences. They’re reminders, of connection, of expression, of how deeply art and emotion are entangled.
Across cities, art, music, performance, and place step into that role quietly, offering experiences that feel less like spectacle and more like intimacy.
Kahani: Dilli Ki
If you’ve ever fallen a little in love with Delhi through cinema, Fanaa, Delhi 6, this is where that romance finds substance. Set at the Travancore Palace, Kahani: Dilli Ki invites you to slow down and look past the noise, towards the histories and communities that continue to shape the city. This isn’t sightseeing; it’s attention. Through music, performance, food, craft, and storytelling, the festival traces Delhi’s layered identities, mythical and modern, imperial and intimate.
Mahindra Blues Festival
Blues music understands longing without exaggerating it. At Mahindra Blues Festivals, the sound is lived-in and emotionally honest. This is not music meant to fill silence, it invites you into it. Whether you arrive single, heart-tired, or perfectly content, the festival meets you where you are. Some evenings are meant to be felt, not fixed.
Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival
Valentine’s Day usually brings roses, cakes, and dolls; symbols meant to stand in for people and emotions. Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival offers something gentler, and perhaps more radical.
Puppetry unfolds without screens, without urgency. Stories are told through movement, craft, and imagination. In a world shaped by shrinking attention spans, this festival allows you to slow down and return to something childlike; playful, yes, but deeply human. It reminds you how storytelling once felt: immersive, patient, shared.
The 4M Festival 2.0
Set in the Western Ghats, the 4M Festival understands romance as atmosphere rather than performance. Music drifts through trees. Bonfires glow under open skies. Conversations don’t rush to conclusions. Intimacy grows here not because it’s planned, but because nothing else competes for your attention. It’s unhurried, understated, and quietly absorbing, the kind of experience that lingers.
Opn Art House
Love isn’t just emotion. It’s a curiosity. Opn Art House doesn’t try to be palatable but it’s somewhere prudently honest. The art here is playful, political, tender, and occasionally unsettling. It asks what we preserve, what we discard, and who gets to decide. Whether you’re queer, allied, partnered, single, or somewhere in between, the space meets you without labels. You leave with ideas you continue to think about, and yes, a few beautifully made objects that feel meaningful enough to gift.
And beyond that…
A museum visit at CSMVS reframes India’s place in the world.
The Kochi Muziris Biennale turns an entire city into a living archive of contemporary thought.
With sea air, sand, and a high-energy pulse, Chennai sets the mood at The Collective Cultural Festival, where EDM and techno carry the night between dance and reflection. In Hyderabad, Strings and Winds brings two maestros together for an immersive musical experience. Where love lingers, and music does the talking.
Love today is complicated. It gets stretched by distance, speed, expectations, and plain old tiredness. Somewhere along the way, we forget how to find our way back to it. Art helps with that. It slows us down, reminds us how to feel, and makes space when words don’t quite work. Whether you’re single, curious, confused, married, or somewhere in between doesn’t really matter. Art shows up anyway. It gives, it holds, and it stays. Maybe that’s reason enough to go experience it.
