Tuesday, February 2, 2010

A case in favor of abolishing Valentine's Day!!!

Unlike other posts, I am not wasting any time before coming to the topic. This time of the year is certainly one of the most stressful to me and to many others of my ilk.
 As soon as India finishes observing a minute's silence to remember Gandhiji's martyrdom, the next big thing on the agenda for everyone is Valentine's Day. But why so, I must ask??
 Yours truly is leading a solitary life and my relationship status is well-publicised among my friends and yet, I have already been bombarded with a substantial set of queries asking about my plans on V-day. Further, what is with these colors and how can a color really be used to indicate "if I am on the market"?? Every time somebody asks me the question ..so what color are you wearing this V-day... I am reminded of a stupid gimmick many ppl carried out on social media to increase awareness about breast cancer. Only I am not sure what is more embarassing.. flashing my underwear color on social media or wearing my relationship status all over my physical existence on V-Day. To an average bachelor residing in a hostel, managing two clean pieces of clothing is tricky enough, without the additional of complexity of colors conveying your love life's deepest secrets.
    I googled out this whole color coding phenomenon and I am listing here the most popular connotations of colors:
  • Blue- I’m free
  • Green- I’m waiting
  • Orange- going to propose
  • Pink- accepted just now!!!
  • Black- proposal rejected
  • White- already booked
  • Yellow- broke up!!!
  • Gray- not interested…
  • Red- leave me
While I am not contesting these codes, I do have some questions in my mind. Does a deeper shade of RED mean a strong "leave me" as in "dont even think about it!!" or did the people wearing PINK keep it as spare, just in case, and just got lucky?? On the whole this entire coding business is driving us back to racial discrimination in its most sophisticated form, differentiating people on the basis of color. 
  Imagine the scenario, you enter a pub and see a person wearing BLACK or YELLOW, do you really want to sit near this character and hear their sob story (my gender neutrality begs appreciation here!!).On the other hand, you probably want to sit next to a PINKy person and try to grab to a free drink or two as celebration. Bingo... discrimination on the basis of color!!! (Me thinks, worse would be actually landing up next to an ORANGE and end up as his dress rehearsal partner...take that!!)
Now that socially essential arguments have been put forward, let me come down to the more personal/emotional arguments.
The two broad lines of argument on this topic are as follows:
  1. this is a day for all the lovers to celebrate Love (almost as if its Diwali!!)
  2. this is a day for all the others to find Love
Now lets rip them apart systematically.
Argument 1 is nonsense. Don't all lovers make/create/manufacture/concoct love for the remaining 364 days of the year. Its not like Diwali when you are bombarded with sweets and crackers for just that one day. We, the single, have been painful witnesses to your public cuddling, kootchi-cooing and what not!!! So don't tell me that you are celebrating Love on that particular day and abstain on the other days of the year. And what the hell.. when did you folks ever need a reason to gift a teddy bear, a chocolate box or watever else is in vogue now!!! Just don't call it the festival of Love...and to think that you are actually celebrating somebody's death!!!

Argument 2 is offensive. Nobody, take it from me NOBODY, ever finds love during Valentine's day. Not only does it provide false hope to the usual-suspects of solitary living, it also gives the whole romance thing a marketplace atmosphere, feeding on supply and demand. You are either already in love and the mass hysteria is helping you express it or you are just feeling the peer pressure of not being found alone (screw the subtlety, without arm candy!!). In the first case you get your hindside kicked and in the second case you are in deep $h&t with either a wrong decision or worse, a compromise!!! Anyways, in case any of you thinks that it is possible to find love on Valentine's Day, this is what I have to say on it:
 Planning to find love on Valentine's Day is like selling notional futures contract in love. You will most probably end up squaring up your positions in the spot market!!!


 Thus, having successfully and single handedly, sounded the alarm bell on Valentine Day celebrations, I request the powers that be to abolish the celebration of V-Day thus, protecting the society from racial hatred and keeping the population on a realistic leash of romanticism.
 My Lord, I thereby rest my case!!!


P.S. Now time for something useful:
 Check out this new cool Facebook group, as a designer you might be interested. Otherwise just spread the word.

7 comments:

  1. Words straight from a very experienced heart.

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  2. Boss, that was shot straight from something residing in the deepest of nooks n corners of the Blood Pumping machine!

    My personal opinion about wearing a color --> Its a mere reflection of one's mood.. one may choose to wear it.. or despise the whole concept!

    Regards celebrating Love...n finding one... you don't need an excuse to love or be loved! A day dedicated to this wowsomestt feeling/virtue is fair enuf! ;)

    Cheers!

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  3. Nice read...

    But being a mortal human being and a friend, I would suggest that given the relatively free time that you have now, you should probably join the retarded ones in celebrating love with one-two..n persons...depends on the number of teddy bears tat u wanna gift....

    And btw, it might be the only day when u square ur positions and dont sulk..!!!..

    So jump on, color code urself and enjoy ;p)..
    Long live the day...
    (Fortunately, i belong to 'we, the single' fraternity.. )

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  4. good read

    but i have to say this - mate, u need to stop letting these trivial days affect u. i use the word trivial cuz its jus another goddamn day. u can choose to look at it as the V day, criticize the color code garbage, see the PDA that happens evry other day as well and pour out ur strong heartfelt criticism of it (oh, im sorry, u already did that.)
    or... u can choose to see it as jus another day. im pretty sure that PDA does not affect u all the other 364 days... then wats so special abt this one?
    ive no idea wat uve been thru - it may or may not have been the reason for ur strong codemnation of this day, but trust me evryone goes thru s*** and u can let it affect u the way u want.
    oh n for the record, im single too :) n lovin it.... so enjoy it while u can ;).... ull hav ur share of singin songs around trees wen the time comes... lol ;) cheers

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  5. Hii, Parasuram !
    me and some of my frnds hv started an
    E-zine called Reader's Quotient
    shan't u be willing to come along us?
    pls contact us on sangeeta.goswami@readersquotient.com

    waiting for ur revert
    regds sangeeta
    www.readersquotient.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. someone's waiting for you ^^ this valentine's day :P

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  7. LOL! forward this 2 shiv sena..they r gonna be very happy reading this....the youth..kisi me to bhartiya sanskriti & sabhyata bachi hai! :p
    vaise even i'm against dedicating a particular day 2 sumthng as divine as love..for that matter i'm against mothers' day, father's day ,etc..too So totally support u.
    oh n btw LOL becoms Lotz Of Love this month instead of Laughing Out Loud! :p

    ReplyDelete