St Val146;s lovefest

You may loathe the Valentine hype and refuse to join in. But how can anybody object to a love festival, just because it8217;s 8216;foreign...

You may loathe the Valentine hype and refuse to join in. But how can anybody object to a love festival, just because it8217;s 8216;foreign8217;? It8217;s ironic, because many Catholics themselves disdain it as 8220;the huge commercial orgy of scent and sentiment for expectant lovers round the world8221;.

Catholic authorities are not even sure who Valentine really was. Yes, he was an Early Christian Martyr, killed by the Romans for being a Christian. But was he the Roman doctor-priest martyred around 261 CE or the bishop of Tierni, also martyred, whose remains were taken to Rome? However, there is no historical connection between St Valentine and the lovefest.

The reason why Mother Church disowns the lovers8217; festival ought to please our Indian killjoys. It8217;s not Christian, it8217;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, Valentine8217;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? 8216;Vasudaiva kutumbakam8217; the world is one family is as Indian a justification as any.

The nice thing about Valentine8217;s is that it8217;s not only for lovers. It8217;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 8216;Uncle8217; and 8216;Aunty8217;. But in a modern urban world, aren8217;t these terms very useful in addressing non-Daddies and non-Mummies who are not blood relatives and/or don8217;t share a mother tongue, but must nevertheless be spoken to with affectionate respect according to our Indian cultural norms? We don8217;t simply hail everybody as Masi, Chachi, Kaku, Mami, do we? We say 8216;Aunty8217; or 8216;Uncle8217; without a blink.

Just as English provides us a graceful social option that our modern reality needs, so Valentine8217;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 companies8217; profits is one thing. But surely religion is not the issue in something as sweetly silly as Valentine8217;s. It8217;s people8217;s natural urge to be sentimental about each other, don8217;t you think?