Valentine Day

It's that time of the year, when I go online and order flowers to be delivered on February 14th - to the home of my favorite uncle and aunt. This year is extra special as they celebrate their 50th marriage anniversary. 50 years of love and togetherness, joy and sorrow, ups and downs, each year a signpost on a life well lived.

It was a family ritual to wish relatives on special occasions - birthdays, anniversaries. And for me 14th of Feb was forever associated with my uncle and aunt's anniversary. It was only when I was studying Engineering in Pune, that I slowly became aware of another significance to this date.

As the D-day, err V-day approached, boyz would be strutting their pectorals, the girls would dissolve into incessant bouts of giggling, and there would be multitude of single stem red roses in the campus..And a few random bouquets for the rich ones.

So I started getting inquisitive about this V-Day, and being a quizzer, I had to get to the source, to prepare for the inevitable V-day questions. I dug into history books (no Wiki those days, alas) to find out that its origins are vague - it is at various times credited to either a Roman Bishop who conducted marriages in secret or an actor dude called Rudolf Valentino who in his salad days  was Salman Khan in MPK and Aamir in QSQT combined. Seriously, do you believe in this hogwash?  Or like me, like any other rational person that is,  believe that it is not credited to any Rudolf-Shudolf, it was simply a super-brainwave in the mind of a marketing professional somewhere who dreamed up this gig and earned himself a lifetime bonus, and ever-lasting gratitude of makers of greeting cards, roses, chocolates, mushy movies, beauty parlors and radio stations. Also, the right wing goons, who wait year long for this day when they can get to bully weak kneed boys, conduct impromptu shaadi's, get their share of 15 minutes on the telly and save Bhartiya Sanskriti, of course.

Though one wonders why in India we follow these obscure icons and celebrate V-Day, why cannot we have a K-day. After our very own Romantic devta - Kamdeva.  At least it will be more original, and the goon squad’s logic of protecting Indian sanskriti would be deflated. One can of course, rationalize the popularity of V-day in India, after all 1/3rd of India's population is in the age group of 15-24, the segment most prone to churning of romantic hormones. And in a society where a boy and girl find it difficult to find a place to meet, this day provides a kind of laissez faire, a license-to-express love. Though like in most things, we Indians tend to go overboard. V-day billboards, theme parties, V-day dressing in colleges, all day romantic mush playing on radio and TV. This also turns all the lumpen elements of society into street side Romeos, for whom any damsel in eyesight becomes fair game. If we have V-day salsa classes, the day is not far when we would have special V-day kickboxing classes to train women to fight back.

Anyway, V-day has now assumed tsunamic proportions in our lives, and indeed it's difficult to rationalize with a person about such an irrational feeling like love. So instead of fighting the wave, I will gracefully sidestep and allow it to pass like any other normal day, go to work, play tennis, read a book. And yes, celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of lovely couple.