A Project Of Love

Three years ago, three journalists founded a social media page to chronicle love stories that had broken barriers. With an Amazon Prime mini-series in the works and 480 posts later, India Love Project has grown into a safe space for many

- FARZANA PATOWARI

Love is a strange thing. A thousand movies, a hundred novels and a million songs later, we're still struggling to define a four-letter word. The thing is, when something is attached so deeply to matters of the heart, they tend to be inexplicable. What else has managed to transcend caste, faith, language, nationality, and all kinds of imaginable barriers in this world? It was this sunny, beautiful aspect of love-a love without boundaries that Indian jewellery titan Tanishq tried to capture a few years ago, through an advertisement that depicted a Muslim mother-in-law acquainting herself with Hindu traditions in a bid to make her interfaith daughter-in-law feel genuinely welcome. Perhaps, the point was entirely lost, as it ruffled feathers of an entire nation, drawing #Boycott Tanishq and #LoveJihad hashtags on social media instead of some sort of cultural epiphany. The ad was later withdrawn.