The Other Side of Valentine!

Valentine's Day!

This is Valentine Season, they say. Everybody talks about it and greetings fly back and forth like a spindle in a loom. Even I get a lot of greetings and I lay a lot of emphasis on that ‘I’ because I have lived around 90% of my life so far without ever hearing about Valentine. I was just reading Elphaba’s snippet on Valentine for the nth time to get some clue into how this virus affects only our purses and nothing else! I am assured by the people who send me Valentine greetings that Valentine’s Day is all encompassing and that giving it an exclusively romantic tab is all wrong. They say that it is perfectly alright for me to send Valentine’s Greeting to OJ, Kamalji or Balajee and I purse my lips in disbelief. Why won’t I purse my lips in disbelief when as early as in 1392 Chaucer wrote:
“For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”
which when translated into modern English would mean:
"For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."
Though Valentine’s Day has a strong under-current of Romantic sentiments, the marketing giants try to spread their net far and wide by including all relationship within the ambit of this Day. So everybody greets everybody else on Valentine’s Day! I have also reconciled myself to this idea and respond to the greetings cheerfully and romantically if they are from my peers!

I presume but correct me if I am wrong that Saint Valentine wants all lovers to get united in wedlock eventually. This is where I have a few thoughts to share with you. When I was studying in Presidency College which was the most sought after destination of most of the romantically inclined students, the girls were awfully outnumbered by the boys which used to be given as an example for ‘lopsided’ by my English Professor. While a majority of boys vied with each other to garner the attention of girls, a minority merely acted as spectators and cheerleaders. The boys who were losing out in this game could be easily identified by the stubble that made their faces worse than what they would be otherwise. My English Professor would advise the guys with the stubble, ‘Boys, always remember that not getting what you want is quite often a stroke of luck.’ This Professor who married the woman he loved was a much bruised man with a large family of some half a dozen children and an extremely ill tempered wife.

To those gloating over the favourable tide in their romantic fortunes, he would sound a word of caution saying ‘Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it’. Though my Professor mainly meant it as a cautionary signal to those who were rushing into matrimony, I always thought that his advices made a lot of sense in all aspects of life. If a man or woman gets married to the desired spouse and if the success in the affaire d`amour comes to him or her without having to give up too much, then it is most likely that the wedding would stick. But if she or he had to make too many sacrifices in their stormy voyage to matrimony, then it becomes a talking point every time a difference of opinion crops up. Initially it starts as some minor skirmishes but they soon assume such gigantic proportions that they inevitably land in a divorce court.

Once we were having a good time in my club. As we were in our rollicking best, another one joined us. He bore the countenance of one who had weathered many a storm in his life. When we poured a drink for him, he took the glass in his shaking hands spilling the amber liquid all over his dress and someone had to hold the glass literally for him. After he left, a friend of mine remarked that the man was suffering from acute neurosis thanks to his ill-tempered wife. On hearing this, a chap sitting next to me looked heavenward and remarked ‘Thanks be to God, I have escaped’. When we all looked askance at him, he explained that he was madly in love with that man’s wife during his student days and imagined that he could never live without her. ‘What an escape!’ he grinned.

 

My dear Vaidehi
Valentine's Day is purely a western concept and when the multinationals started targeting Indian Market, they had to dump Valentine on us. Since we are very good at aping west, we celebrate Valentine's Day with a lot more gusto. As you rightly say, when there is understanding all days can be Valentine's Day. For that matter, Mother's Day and Father's Day are celebrated by us on all 365 days in a year. I can never understand the logic behind setting apart one day in a year to pamper our parents! Eastern sentiment works on a totally different plane!
Sri

 

Dear Agatha
46 years of marriage? That's a surprise! No wonder all your snippets are grounded on life's most basic drama including all the basic pains of bearing the imprints of the passage of time. What is celebrating Valentine's Day? I have no clue. If it is exchange of cards and gifts, there are a lot more private occasions to celebrate than Valentine's Day! Today was my MIL's annual ceremony and my wife went off to her elder sister's place for the ceremony and I have already started missing her! When my daughter tells her "Amma, don't leave appa alone and go. He feels entirely lost!', my wife is supremely happy to know how indispensable she is in my life!

Your concluding sentence says it all, Agatha!
Sri

 

My dear Syamala
Long time, no see you know! I know I have become too lazy! I spend more time sitting in the terrace and straining my eyes searching for the stars than in front of my computer. Some fifty years back, we could see millions of stars in the Chennai sky and on a clear night even the Milky Way could be seen like a luminous cloud but today thanks to all the pollution, if we can count twenty stars we are lucky! That makes me far less romantic and all this talk about Valentine's Day irritates me! It is not as if I am absolutely unromantic like Aurangzeb but it is just that I need my quota of stars to feel romantic!

When I met OJ at Kamalji's daughter's wedding at Jaipur, he had brought me some nice Bengali movies and that was no Valentine's Day. Good friends won't wait for any special day to loosen up the strings of their purses. I send all my cards on line. These days it has become such a crazy practice that we send electronic cards to our close kith and kin living in our own house! It has become a fashion now to open a Registry for special occasions and tie-up with Amazon or a similar outfit for receiving gifts directly!

If romances end up in marriages, people soon tend to forget them. If Laila and Majnu had got married and produced a roomful of children, would we be talking about them today? All the most talked about Romantic stories like Romeo and Juliet are the ones that never ended in wedlock. There are two types of tragedies that strike lovers. One is getting married and the other is not getting married. At least, by the latter, we become most talked about!

I'll endeavour to write on a more regular basis henceforth. This is not a New Year resolution. The time is over for it, you know!
Sri

 

My dear Syamala
The passionate love of youth is nothing compared to the companionship of old age. You say 'Her presence in the house is enough for him' and that sums up the quintessence of companionship. I know some peers of mine who hardly talk to their wives when they are at home and they can even be very petulant over trivia but the moment the wives take a break to visit their siblings, these men become utterly despondent. The funny part is that these men are so egoistic, they won't accompany their wives to visit their siblings!
Sri