Valentine Salentine Hai Rabba!

“What is your Valentine plan?” My manager asked me during lunch the other day

“Planning to come to office” I said with a little surprise

“You better come. You can go wherever you want in the evening” He warned me

Now that was a very funny question because to celebrate Valentine Day (V-Day), you need to have a date, a girl, a female species of Homo sapiens and I do not have one and he knows that.

It was like unnecessary mocking by the have-beens of the never-hads which in simpler words mean that a rich man making fun of the poor or like a person in a car making fun of the people walking on the street, or a person eating sweets in front of a person having diabetes or a lot of discriminatory reason I can think of. Lets say I can project myself as a real bechara here but the fact does not changes. I have nothing to do on Valentine Day.

Almost 15 years ago, the valentine day was not as famous as it is now. Atleast I did not know that this day existed but then I did not know a lot of days that existed. I studied in all boy’s school where girls were a rare species. My school life went quite well fighting, playing, rarely studying and having no issues about women.

My junior college was the worse. Not only it was a boys college, it was the strictest college around. The only freedom was that there was no uniform. Even my school was not so strict. When other colleges celebrated rose day, traditional day, blue day and what-you-can-think-of days, we did not even have an annual day. It was no surprise that when we finished junior college, people refused to keep in touch, I guess just to erase those dreadful nightmarish two years.

The three years Diploma did not makes things better. Although a much better college in term of education and location, a class of 60 did not have a single female species. How pathetic can one’s life get? Again, no celebration days. Life was busy enough with a series of exams, practical journal completion to notice the concept and existence of V-day. So when finally when our college announced a traditional day in the final year, we came in our regular attire of shirt and trousers. We were so not used to celebrate these special days.

The post diploma was not much fun either. Inspite of being a reputed college and having a lot of these special days and college festival, our class was strangely isolated from all the fun and fare. The good thing was we had girls in the class, the worst thing was they thought we were idiots and we didn’t care.

The professional life was not much fun either in terms of celebrating special days. The rose day, the saree day, the this-day, the that-day disappeared. Not that I noticed but come to think of it now, I had a very boring life altogether. So there was no Valentine day for me just for the simple fact that there was never a girl in my life. There were friends, there were sisters and there were rakhi sisters but never a girl for V-day. Not until “She” happened.

So at last when I was aware of the existence of a Valentine day, I would have had my first Valentine day. But I am so good at timings and my luck is even better than my timing. I proposed to her on the 22nd Jan. She said “Yes” to me in the last week of February. Till that time, she was still in “I never thought about you that way” mode. I did visit her two days after V-day and she requested me to bring flowers for her married friend in the office because her husband was not romantic to celebrate V-day. I brought a smile to atleast one girl on that day.

That was the first time when I came almost close to celebrate Valentine day. Unfortunately, that was the first time when I became aware of that day. I agree with “Ignorance is bliss”. Till that day, I wouldn’t have thought of celebrating V-day. It was just like the countless rose days, blue day, green day, yellow day and what-not day. I had nothing to do with it.

Earlier the concept was simple, No girl, no date, no gift, no valentine equals to no problem. The next year it was no girl, no date, no gift, no valentine equals to pathetic life.

The situation was worse in office. As we were of the technical support staff, the traditional day in office was spent in front of the server, the annual Navratri celebration was spent in the office doing maintenance because the whole office would be on the ground enjoying themselves, sitting in the office on Saturdays and office picnics. The instances may appear very pathetic but we enjoyed these schedules and that was strange.

People change and people change more around Valentine day, especially when they are married or committed in a relationship. They discuss which restaurant to go and what gift to buy, how to make the evening more interesting and all that stuff. All this talk makes the losers; I mean the people who are unfortunate not to get a date for Valentine Day feel all the more miserable.

Although I haven’t celebrated Valentine Day, I don’t find it against any culture. It just looks like another commercial event which the companies can bank on and increase their bank balance. If people want to celebrate love, I don’t think it should harm anybody. The way they celebrate it can be a small gesture or a big present.

So if you have someone to celebrate love, go ahead and celebrate it, the way you want. For those who don’t have a partner, you have a family. Valentine Day is not about girl friend-boyfriend only. Its about showing you care, I guess that what we were told. Even if it isn’t true, it feels nice.

And if you don’t have anything to do, you can use my fantastic well-researched guide on preparing for Valentine day without a date and things to do on a Valentine Day. Anyway you want to celebrate it, enjoy it and everybody;

Happy Valentine Day to all!!