ON VALENTINE’s Day,that is February 14, the city of Nagpur will wear a different look -- with hordes of young people gathering in public places including restaurants etc and celebrate ‘love’ -- as usual, every year. Tomorrow, that is February 14, all the love people express through various means and modes will spill out on to the streets. True, there will still be people who would not want join that bandwagon of demonstration of so-called love, and would be called morons, to say the least. Of course, over the years, the Valentine Day’s craze has waned much in many places -- at least in Central India. A few years ago, the BBC aired a documentary highlighting the changing considerations of common people about Valentine’s Day.

 

Despite this, countless numbers of young people get out of their homes and hostels, get dressed up as smartly as they can, and dance )and even drink) and show the world that they are celebrating ‘love’. The whole atmosphere is filled with the ‘love’ of only one kind -- and appears to omit the affection different people have for their brothers and sisters and mothers and a fathers. The loosefooter has often felt a sense of disgust when he sees young people going berserk on the Valentine’s Day. There is no need to raise the issue of Indian culture etc in this regard. Obviously, Valentine’s Day is a western concept, and got introduced to Indian society a few decades ago because some commercial interest wanted to create a marketing narrative to sell some of its merchandises.

 

Hence all the propaganda about Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, commerce is often known to have dominated many festivals, including those dedicated to pure devotion. But because some interests wanted to create a marketing narrative to dominate unthinking minds of unsuspecting common people, they popularised ideas that have little to do with devotion to a deity etc. Valentine’s Day celebrations, too, fall more or less in a similar category. Of course, this thought has been doing the rounds of the society for some time now, and has succeeded in weaning many common people away from senseless indulgence in unexplained celebrations. Yet, many years may have to pass before the shallow narrative about Valentine’s Day gets wiped out. The loosefooter, however, will also urge young people not to lose their sense of balance and indulge in nonsense in the name of ‘love’.