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| My daughter Shalvi with her beloved husband Pratik |
Come
February, the print and electronic media including social media go into the
overwork mode, hyping Valentine’s Day with a plethora of ads and ideas. Yesterday,
Sanjay (my hubby) who is not good with remembering dates and anniversaries,
read similar hype on his phone and asked, “When is Valentines’ Day?” My son, Sreyas, instantly gave the date and then delivered his own opinion “Now they start a week
ahead with Chocolate Day, Rose Day, blah-blah … I am sure it was some who female
started this tradition!”
This sent me down memory lane back to my teens -- I must have been around 15 when I first read an Archies advertisement on Valentine’s Day cards. I remember looking up the dictionary (there was no Google then) and discovering that signified day of love, February 14, which was celebrated as Valentine’s Day all over the world. It marked the birth anniversary of the legendary St Valentine of Rome, who’s believed to have secretly married young couples, thus defying Emperor Claudius II’s decree against young men marrying, as he believed that single men made better soldiers!
Today, I thought I’d look up St Valentine, the priest, hoping to gain more insight into the history and tradition than I did as a teenager. And here is what I found out!
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| Sreyas with the love of his life, Mithila |
In Roman history, one can actually find two saints of the same name (Valentine) who were martyred on February 14 by beheading (so it’s definitely not a birth anniversary). One was supposedly killed in Rome, while the other was the Bishop of Interamna (now Terni), some 60 miles from Rome. The former is said to have been persecuted along with Claudius the Goth, around 269 AD. A basilica was built in his honour in 350 AD and a catacomb containing his mortal remains was found on the site. The latter is believed to have been martyred in Rome. Thus, it is very likely that by being remembered both in Rome and in Interamna, the same person may have been considered as two different saints; but there is no conclusive proof of this. February 14 was declared St Valentine’s Day by Pope Gelasius in 496 AD.
Moving on to the custom of exchanging gifts on Valentine’s Day, there are many stories going around, one of which is mentioned above. Another story claims the custom gained popularity with the English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer mentioning that birds began pairing off on the day in his poem, The Parliament of Fowls which goes as under:
“For this was on Saint Valentine’s
day,
When every fowl comes there his mate
to take,
Of every species that men know, I
say,
And then so huge a crowd did they
make,
That earth and sea, and tree, and
every lake
Was so full, that there was scarcely
space
For me to stand, so full was all the place.”
A similar mention is found in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream when Theseus on coming across the lovers asleep in the woods comments, “Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now”.
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| The love of my life and me! |
Yet another
story relates to the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, held on February 15
every year. During this festival, a priest would sacrifice a dog and
several goats in the Lupercal (a cave in the Palentine Hill). Two young
men then struck women with strips made from hides of the sacrificed
goats. The women accepted the blows as they believed it made them
fertile. The festival is named after Lupercus, the God of
Fertility.
Legend also
has it that Valentine was an early Christian who befriended many children and
was imprisoned by the Romans because he refused to pray to their
Gods. The children missed him and are said to have tossed loving
messages through the bars of his cell windows (find a similarity with today’s
tradition of exchanging love letters?) A parallel story says
Valentine restored the sight of the jailor’s blind daughter.
Though all these stories relate to traditions that go back over centuries, today’s celebrations don’t commemorate any of them. It’s all glitz and glamour, mere commercialization and exploitation at its best. It’s been going on for some time now, I was introduced to Valentine’s Day by an Archies commercial all those years ago. And today, it’s the gift manufacturers and greeting card companies, coupled with the chocolate businesses that promote the event most aggressively, obviously aimed at baiting teenagers and those in their early twenties to boost their sales while portraying it as a way to proclaim ‘true love’. In February, it is Valentine’s Day (or week!). Come March, International Day of Women; Grandparents’ Day in April; Mothers’ Day/Family Day in May; Fathers’ Day in June; Parents’ Day in July (after honouring mother and father separately, you honour them again together!); Friendship Day in August.... The list goes on and on. These commercial organisations hire people to come up with such ideas to boost sales, and we laymen end up spending our hard-earned money to foot their hefty pay packets.
It’s high
time we woke up and realised that just giving gifts on one day does not signify
true love. True love is expressed through small acts of caring in
day-to-day situations, and the sweet nothings whispered at the breakfast
table. It’s also expressed by just being there when needed and
lending a patient ear when the other half needs to let off steam.
So this Valentine’s Day, remember to make every day of your loved one’s life a Valentine’s Day, and see them return your gift in the same measure -- Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! If you are interested in customs and traditions around Valentine's Day across the globe, please visit my other blog, Left, Right and 'Thoda sa' Centre. You can find the article here (Go Retro This Valentine's).
Leave your best wishes for The Wandering Mind in the Comments section; and don’t forget to read, follow, share and subscribe as you celebrate.
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