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SANGEETA BRAJABASI

SongSoptok | 2/15/2017 |




Every year as the D day approaches, I mean the Valentine's Day; people start gearing up with their individual reactions to the day. The staunch moral police come out on the streets banning the celebrations and calling it a cultural sabotage. On the other hand the skinny jeans, cropped topped, girls and boys put on their tinted glasses of love and start buying cards and roses for their Valentine. The third group prefer to watch the drama from the sidelines, holding nothing against Valentine yet not partaking in it. They are like two teams in the social arena to prove a point with an indifferent referee. The perfect love triangle indeed. In a way both the warring sides make this day immensely popular with each passing year. Both lack in clarity of why they shun or celebrate Valentine's Day. Shun it only because the concept is foreign or celebrate only because it is fashionable to do so. ? The third set of people I suppose keep calm till Cupid strikes! In this love triangle the origin of Valentine gets blurred. The Feast of Saint Valentine or Valentine's Day is essentially a day to celebrate love. Love in every style can be celebrated, but on this particular day romantic affections takes precedence over other love ties.

Having been a married woman for more than half my life certainly does not qualify me as any great exponent of love and relationship. There is no should or shouldn't, love is just an emotion and if the heart desires to profess love on any particular day so be it. Given a chance I will go back all the way and do the same things in life again and again, from falling in love, learning in love, and living in love. Growing up on songs like “love me tender love me sweet ", and many such beautiful love songs, I couldn't have helped but become a romantic at heart. I belong to the generation where love was supposed to mean a special and everlasting sentiment for that special someone. But, yes the 'but ' does come in life every time and the 'but ' teaches us maturity and reality and romantic illusions do fade a little.

Our next generation is smarter than us. They do not attach undue sentimentality to love. Boys and girls still do get attracted but the choices they make are with open mind and clarity. The priorities of life of the educated youth today is to find true friendship, happy relationship, rather than make a Romeo Juliet love story.

Every couple have their special moments, days, or incidents to cherish. That day when the heart raced beyond control, that day when one felt weak in the knee, that day when one cried or laughed without reason. That special day is your own Valentine's Day. In the hum drum running of life the warm memories of that day or days are often forgotten or even if remembered it is not celebrated. Love becomes a habit, not something you rejoice and feel constantly. In such a busy world with super busy people if the world outside generates a day to celebrate love, why be satirical or cynical about it .If a day is celebrated around the world as a day of love and as an individual anyone has the time and desire to be part of the celebration it will only add smiles between the miles of this world.

No concept is foreign in today's date and time. There are Grandparent's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Daughter's Day, Son's Day and many more. Human relations are most tender and precious. They need constant nurturing, care, understanding, sacrifices, and adjustments, to cement the bonding between individuals. No matter how strongly we feel for each other the feelings also need to be expressed. There is no running away from broken homes, broken marriages, alienated parents, abandoned children. In a world so busy and grim it wouldn't hurt to celebrate a day for a relationship.

"Hallmark Holiday” is a new concept where the occasion is generated by a company to sell their merchandise. We can smirk or laugh at it but the very existence of this situation does tell a story of its own. The extreme situation when one has to rely only on a card to feel or profess love and care can be shallow and depressing. Love needs more than a card, it is an expression between two people. Around this time of the year all over the radio channels and television channels, one can hear endless talks and music surrounding Valentine's Day. Making it sound like a seasonal affair by which one is obliged to get affected. But in reality there are hundreds of people who are not in a romantic relationship or any other special relationship. It can happen that some may start feeling a sense of lacking by this media generated hype over certain days. The extreme of consumerism at times becomes insensitive to real life situations. They want to sell life in a glittering gift box. But life is not a piece of merchandise. Life is very simple, feelings are simpler, and it is to be felt deep within like “music of the murmuring spring”.

Valentine's Day or the Valentine way is not the only day and way to celebrate love, for love was there forever. Love awaits in the bend of a river, in the glow of a setting sun, in the smooth valleys of the green mountains, in the darkest grey clouds, in the songs of the birds, in the unspoken promises of life. To think that love will unfold only on a particular day is wrong. Let the day happen amidst the myth and reality, let the day come and go, for it is nothing more than the joy of life between a dawn and dusk.

Some argue about the concept, some hold debates, and in extreme situations some oppose the day by resorting to vandalism. One can stop being aggressively resistant towards every new concept. In a world where we talk of global community, global citizenship, Valentine's Day is as much a day of the east as it is of the west. Yet celebrating a day without understanding the essence of love is another extreme of cultural fashionista.  And a total apathy to the things around us is also in need of change. Thus Valentine Day with all its well-meaning message gets caught in this love triangle. And like all good love stories here too love triumphs.

This is romantic me finally signing off humming a favorite Bangla song " Aaj shobar ronge rong melaate hobe " ( today I need to blend in with the colors around me ) and waiting yet for my first Valentine card .


SANGEETA BRAJABASI

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