ABSTRACT
Marriage as being about family rather than individuals is a common South Asian trope, and while there is truth to it, it is one that is continually being negotiated by families and couples alike. Meeting runaway intercaste couples hiding in a safe house in Delhi led me to reflect on a new geography of love at work in their lives and in the city today, especially in relation to caste, which is always imbricated with class and gender in urban India. By mapping the social and physical parameters of runaway couples’ mobility in a single ethnographic context, I argue that it is the quest for mobility rather than an expression of individual choice that is most significant about their flouting of social norms.
