Hey, it's our last season of Rough Translation on NPR.

And fittingly, it is the season that we've been reporting for the longest amount of time.

About five years ago, I started talking with NPR correspondent Lauren Freyer about couples

she was meeting in India, couples who had taken a brave and surprising step.

We assembled an international team to make this series, including my guest co-host, Moncy

Chokesy, a writer and journalist whose personal journey is also part of our story.

In fact, it is where we're going to begin.

Because, see, Moncy always knew growing up in India that when it came to love, her generation

was going to do things differently.

So growing up in the 90s in India, there were essentially two messages that we were getting.

One was that we were going to be the ones that get all the opportunities that our parents

and our grandparents generation did not get.

The second message was that along with the new jobs, the new malls and the new multiplex

theaters, was the promise of more choice in her personal life.

Kushonan, Hindi cinema, I want to see my mother.

Revved around like the hopeless romantic.

Dhani Ma's voice in the song,

Kewaikaru, Jumat Ketai.

Bollywood romances of that era featured lovers who crossed boundaries of class but also cast

and even faith.

Star cross lovers that crossed these bridges and divides to be together.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

...