And teddy bears with red bows......

Celebrating festivals seems to have become the new obsession of the country. Apart from festivals , we've also taken to celebrating the Days of Occasions. So now you have Mother's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Father's Day, Father's Mother's Day, Uncle Tom's Day, Uncle Tom's Cabin's Day, Little Miss Muffet's Day and so on.......


The BIG new occasion in town, big enough to make you f-u-r-g-e-t that you're practically edging past 33.33(recurring)% is.....*hold ya breath* VALENTINE'S DAY!!!.

Now, normal Valentine's Day parlance is something like this:

You wake up groggily, switch on the TV.What hits you first? A news anchor wearing an obnoxious-looking red suit, looking as if he's just won KBC (with SRK, mind you :D), cheerily trying to get you as infused with the "spirit" of the Day.The news set is done up in red (but of course, they need to show they know what the colour of the day is)

Sample news on one the Hindi ones:
Aur aaj desh ke kone kone main Valentine's Day manaya ja rahaa hai. Deepak, hamen bataaiye ki Dilli main kya ho raha hai...
And Deepak, wearing a red tee himself, rants off about how he got his girlfriend a spanking new greeting card (hmph.what else?) and how everyone is going to attend such spiffing do's and have such a sporadicly "fun" time.

Sorry, but leave me out of this.
I don't want a white coloured teddy-bear (of all things) witha red bow.
I don't want red coloured heart-shaped balloons.
I don't want those "The Ultimate Valentine's Day Collection" CDs that materialize out of thin air around Feb the fourteenth.

If I sound like a Shiv Sena loyalist going on about the 'Americanization' of the youth, lemme clarify.
I do appreciate that you'd like to take time out for someone you love, but please, does it have to involve Valentines Day special edition newspapers?
You love someone, go tell them, but for goodness' sake, don't thrust your I Love You messages on my face.

And finally,
Celebrate all you want, but frankly, this isn't celebration.


And don't expect me to join in.




(written in a rare anti-social mood, frequently seen after exam results)