This day and that ...

If love and fresh air is all you need to live, then Valentine’s Day should suitably fatten you up.

The year’s most celebrated day, ‘Valentine’s day’ has come and gone. And it was a wise decision I did not have any shopping to do. Shopping malls were working overtime to satisfy the growing demand for roses, stuffed teddy bears and everything else heart shaped. I still have not been able to figure out why people in love gift each other teddy bears, that’s a different topic altogether. Pretzels to doughnuts – everything is pink and heart shaped. Everybody is religiously wishing each other. Since this is one occasion that is celebrated across countries and religions, I reckon more wishes than even Diwali. People are wishing each other even on business mail. Now that is looking at in a very business like manner.

Lets not forget the scores of other days – mother’s day, father’s day, friendship day boss’s day, doctor’s day and the lesser known ones – strawberry ice cream day, cheesecake day etc. Every single day in the year seems to be given a special connotation to it.

Some one has to make hay when the sun shines. Greeting card makers must be selling the highest number of greeting cards on days like this. Mobile phone companies love to feel the importance associated with networks jammed over sms flooding. The stuffed toyshops are selling teddy bears like hot cakes. Restaurants are saving electricity by using candles in stead. A lot of poetry, odes to love are written on this day. There is generally a flurry of activity in the sleepy month of February. These people actually are augmenting the hullabaloo associated with it.

For one week to the run up of this day all radio listeners were subjected to listening to some pathetic poetry. ‘I will cross a thousand miles. To watch you smile’ and more of that genre. All shows were mostly request shows playing some painfully slow songs. Some people make proposing on air in front of the world at large without a care in the world.

This alien western concept has infected the world at large. It has numerous language and cultural versions to it. And without sounding “extremist”; for once I support the Shiv Sena on this one.


If love is the essence of life why do we celebrate it just one day in the year? Is not belittling the whole concept? Can we quantify our feelings? Can we attach a material value to let our loved ones know? Can we allow our insecurities to conquer in such a way that material gifts are needed to re assure us all the time?