All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. - Charles M Schulz.
Valentine’s Day , the festival of love is almost a week away. And as I am a very lovable person, I thought I should share my views on it. Also it’s my very first Valentine’s Day here.
Statuary Warning: This post is not about the bliss, love, affection or the public display of it associated with the day, but about its hard reality. So all you heart patients (figurative) out there, please keep out.
If you trace back the history of Valentine’s Day, you will get different stories. It has been celebrated for ages but never in the way it is being celebrated for the last 15-20 years. If I am not wrong, in India, it all started with SRK starer Dil To Pagal Hai (1997). Before that, the day was unheard of. So, why the Valentine’s Day celebration gained momentum in the last two decades or so? I will come to that later. First, I should get to the significance of the day.
It’s a day on which a not so popular girl in the final year of college awaits a proposal from a guy who kept staring at her throughout the college but never really talked to her. It’s a landmark day before which every single wants to jump into a relationship and it’s a day on which each and every person who is a part of a couple, flaunts his/her social acceptance.
For the city I hail from, it’s just a risky outing. With a possible risk of getting married the same day (read Moral Police), only the brave-hearts dare to step out which otherwise is a breezy, lovely afternoon. With the ascent of anti-moral policing movement it has got even riskier. It’s a curse in disguise. The main exponent of this movement is a Women Organization. They make sure that you are unharmed by the moral-police during your outing with your partner. But but but – it’s a women’s organization. There is fair chance that one of the members is your distant relative or an aunty from the neighbourhood. So you can go out that day, alright, but possibly never again.
So, coming back to the original question. Why the celebrations gained momentum in the last two decades? Well, the answer is simple and obvious. It’s a marketing gimmick, probably a blue ocean one, where new markets were created. On V-day, gift and card manufacturing firms, chocolate companies etc. can increase their sales by ten folds and more which otherwise was a pretty ordinary day. Imagine we can get away with normal mobile phone tariff on our National Festivals but special tariff is charged on the Valentine’s Day. These days even the political parties are leveraging the popularity of the day (Ambush Marketing). It’s so successful a strategy that for past 5 years or so it has been extended to form what we call a Valentine’s week.
Day 1: Rose Day
Both guy and girl are happy on this day. Girl for receiving a rose and guy because he got through the date merely in ten bucks.
Day 2: Propose Day
This day girl is never happy. She always wants her bf to propose her in the most innovative way possible, and it never happen in real life.
Day 3: Chocolate Day
This day girl is very happy and boy is secretly happy. He knows that half the chocolate he buys for her will come back to him.
Day 4: Teddy Day
This day takes a toll on a guy’s pocket. Girls are elated as their fixation to teddies is well known to the world.
Day 5: Promise Day
A dreadful day for the guys as most of them, 99.84 % to be precise are commitment phobic.
Day 6: Hug Day & Day 7: Kiss Day
The pappi-jhappi days, as I call it. These days are usually used by newly formed couples to escalate bases.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love. I'd stepped in it a few times. – Rita Rudner
Keep loving, all 365 days a year (366 for this particular one) not just on one particular day or a week.
God Bless :)
