A costly affair
Come February and the world decides to dabble in what can be the oldest and strongest feeling known to mankind – love. They say people become a wee bit gentler and nicer in the shortest month of the year (unfortunately), throw away their ill feelings (and senses) and decide to spread some love. Sadly, that’s where the gifting industry decides to jump in and pull the biggest con in history – unless you buy something and gift it to the one you love, you cannot truly express it.
We’ve seen it in the Garden of Eden when Eve, and Adam, are tempted by the fruit. And we see it now, when the flashy colours and neon lights in every store you pass, every page you turn, every channel you flip and every site you visit, all chorus in unison the one thing you need to get the one you love – gifts! And the monopoly has won our hearts and better halves hands down.
Gone are the days when you can just put on a brave front, wear your heart on your sleeve and profess your love with a single rose on your knees and make her say yes. Now, you may be considered for a nod if you throw in a cheesy proposal, a ton of gifts, a band playing love hits, (maybe a choreography team, if you can afford it) an audience, and a friend with a smartphone filming the entire drama.
And if you’re already hitched or in a relationship, the deals are bigger — from heading to an exotic getaway location, risking your life on an adventurous proposal re-visitation (be it on a hot-air balloon or a helicopter) or surprising your loved one with a room full of roses or the biggest teddy bear ever — the only thing that is faster than your racing heartbeat will be the money draining out of your bank accounts.
The month brings only one thing in mind — keeping track of the endless days it has, from Roses Day and Chocolate Day to Teddy Bear Day and Kisses Day. I’m sure you didn’t know that February also has World Cancer Day and National Science Day. Of course you didn’t; not when you’ve spent the first 10 days spying your loved one’s Amazon and Flipkart wishlist and scrolling through gifting websites to pick the ‘perfect’ gift (it never really is) and bring a smile on her face.
Social service
If popular culture and social media are to be believed, you are not celebrating Valentine's Day correctly if you are not checking into a super expensive resort or restaurant with your 'loved' ones or putting up cheesy messages for everyone on your social media feeds.
Coming back to Valentine's Day, In the age of social media, a celebration of love is no longer something deeply intimate. It involves putting up multiple pictures with your loved one, with heart emojis, multiple hashtags and long declarations of unending love, all done when you are at dinner with aforementioned person in an expensive restaurant, where you wrestle for personal space with multiple sets of couples. A vast majority swipes their phones to see the likes on their social media platform’s #iwonthevday brigade. Of course, the singles brigade also ups its game, with multiple posts extolling the virtues that singledom brings to their lives.
Now, dear reader, excuse me as I head to make reservations at the aforementioned restaurant and make up new hashtags.
Nowhere to run
As someone prone to forgetting important days, and getting berated for it later, it comes as small surprise that Valentine's Day is not marked on my calendar, because, well, what's the point? Birthdays, those morbid reminders of your fleeting mortality, warrant some celebration. Anniversaries are a good enough excuse to visit that overpriced restaurant and let the establishment fleece you with a smile and a complimentary brownie.
Even celebrating love on a day associated with martyrdom (go look up some history before buying those discounted chocolates) makes some sense, the emotion does deserve some acknowledgement, though preferably not as an exercise in brand promotion.
Case in point: opening the 'Promotions' tab in Gmail this week has been an exercise in fending off questions.
What are your plans? (We're organising a movie night!) Where are you going? (Psst! Want to hire a car?) Didn't find a date? (Comfort food delivered in 45 minutes, unless we experience heavy demand, or rain, or our delivery partner gets lost in your front yard).
Heading to YouTube proved a bad idea, as videos on Valentine's Day gifting ideas (including one made by the wife) stared back at me, with a helpful ad sitting merrily on the side of the page, waiting to suck in victims.
All right, Facebook then, maybe there's normalcy... Oh the entire teenage male population is having a meltdown over a GIF of a girl winking? Excellent.
Looks like Instagram is where the resistance is, with AIB's helpful 'Pyaar Ek Dhoka Hai' hashtag creating solidarity for the sake of laughs, or loneliness, it's hard to tell which. But wait, someone's using it to showcase cupcakes with broken hearts on them. And the phrase is probably being printed on T-shirts right this moment.
There is no escape.