India, March 26 -- On 14 February, the venerable Bhaichand Patel did not host his annual Valentine's Day party. In fact, he hasn't hosted it for three years in a row. This has been a profound setback for the capital's fashionable set. After all, for over two decades, Bhaichand's Valentine's Day party was a fixture on Delhi's social calendar. The last one, in 2023, convinced him he would never host it again.

This afternoon, seated with a glass of white wine in the back garden of his apartment in central Delhi's Sujan Singh Park-where the mildly warm March air is alive with the chirping of sparrows-he explains why. Many familiar faces were missing at that final party. "My longtime friends were no longer there-Satish (Gujral), Sadia (Dehlvi...