St Val’s lovefest

The reason why Mother Church disowns the lovers’ festival ought to please our Indian killjoys. It’s not Christian, it’s really the Roman Lupercalia, which quietly slipped into the new Christian faith because its roots went too deep to be cut off. One theory even goes that in the West, birds are supposed to start pairing off on February 14, and hence the link to lovers. In India, Valentine’s Day comes a week after Basant Panchami, our Spring Fest. What a pretty reason to celebrate Love, the re-greening of our hearts. So what if it links up with a larger world festival? ‘Vasudaiva kutumbakam’ (the world is one family) is as Indian a justification as any.

The nice thing about Valentine’s is that it’s not only for lovers. It’s for anybody you love or feel affection for. Bhai-dooj and Raksha Bandhan are only between brothers and sisters, and all those fasting festivals are between husbands and wives, while Guru Poornima is between teachers and students. Meanwhile, translators of bhasha literature often complain that English does not have detailed kinship terms like Indian languages. They ridicule ‘Uncle’ and ‘Aunty’. But in a modern urban world, aren’t these terms very useful in addressing non-Daddies and non-Mummies who are not blood relatives and/or don’t share a mother tongue, but must nevertheless be spoken to with affectionate respect according to our Indian cultural norms? We don’t simply hail everybody as Masi, Chachi, Kaku, Mami, do we? We say ‘Aunty’ or ‘Uncle’ without a blink.

Just as English provides us a graceful social option that our modern reality needs, so Valentine’s gives us a charming opportunity to celebrate all the relationships not covered by the old ways. So you can send friends, relatives, office mates, the old guy who feeds the birds in the park, the elderly couple with NRI kids far away, or just about anybody a Valentine, the frillier the better! Refusing to add to card companies’ profits is one thing. But surely religion is not the issue in something as sweetly silly as Valentine’s. It’s people’s natural urge to be sentimental about each other, don’t you think?