Natasha (last name withheld on request), 35, has an autoimmune disease that puts her at higher risk for Covid-19. So, for five months, she stayed indoors at her home in Bengaluru, working remotely with the fintech company where she is a team leader.
As the virus raced around the globe, she didn’t feel particularly adventurous and wasn’t interested in taking any chances. What she did crave, though, was contact.
Her live-in partner was in Kerala for work in March and was unable to return across the closed state borders for nearly five months. “Two weeks in, I started craving some warmth,” she says. “I don’t know how to describe it, but I needed something that was not the cold contact of a china mug or the insulation of a blanket. When my partner came home, he had to spend another two weeks in quarantine and finally, when I hugged him, it was such a relief!”
What Natasha’s describing is called skin hunger or touch deprivation.
“The craving for touch is…