When Mekhala Chaubal walked down the aisle last year, she did her bit for Marathi abhimaan. In a marigold-yellow Paithani nauvari, a nose ring, and a string of white pearls cinched around her forehead, she tied the knot with Tatum Taylor, her partner of 10 years, and now wife. "I'm very proud of my Marathi heritage," she says. "My decision to wear a Paithani nauvari was influenced by that, because it's the symbol of fierce and empowered women across the ages in Maharashtrian culture. And, wearing it on my wedding day made me feel like a part of that history."

It's the middle of the night in Mumbai, when we speak to them. They are in Toronto, two nerds, home after a long day at work (Chaubal is a lawyer; Taylor works at an architectural firm). In their 10 years together, they have gone through their share of twists and turns in the pursuit of love. They met at Randolph College in Virginia, US, while studying creative writing. "The way the writing classes were set up, you workshopped each other's pieces," recalls Chaubal. "Every week, someone submitted poetry or fiction, and everybody went around in a circle and critiqued the pieces. Some of our first conversations were on paper. Now that I think back, I think we fell in love with our most honest selves, because we fell in love with the poet and the writer." Taylor says, "I always felt like they were love notes. We were just friends the first two years. By the time we realised we liked each other, we'd already fallen in love."