In August, musician Arjun Kanungo and his long-time girlfriend, South African model Carla Dennis, tested positive for COVID-19. All Kanungo experienced by way of symptoms was a consistent headache for a few days. Dennis, who had a slightly more acute infection, was hospitalised with breathing difficulty. It was at face value, one of the most challenging times the couple had faced. Ironically, it brought them closer, they say. "Long before the lockdown, I had decided I was going to ask Carla to marry me. But life took a toss when the pandemic broke, and worse, both of us contracted the infection. Carla was quite sick, and it was unsettling for me because it was the first time that I had seen her fall seriously ill," remembers the singer with the dreamy voice who got famous with the single, Baaki baatein peene baad.

Dennis adds, "I think if you live with someone through a pandemic, locked up, and have to spend all your waking hours together, it's a good opportunity to sense if the relationship is going to work. We have always offered each other a lot of space, so when we realised how comfortable we were even in the absence of it, we knew this would work. I had a lot of fun through this time. But when I got sick, I realised that Arjun is very paternal, that he can look after me!" Kanungo, who doesn't agree
with the image, thinks her statement "will spoil my reputation"; Dennis argues, "but he has never had a bad boy image anyway".