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| My funny Valentine |
| Papi Menon / Feb 14, 2010, 00:40 IST |
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In India, February 14 is celebrated as a team sport.
The other day, I was walking down the street and decided to look in on one of my favourite bars in the neighbourhood, it being that evening hour when many of my friends venture out to quench their thirst. To my surprise, the chairs and tables had been rearranged, smooth jazz played in the background, and well dressed young men and women milled around playing with what looked like brightly coloured cards, and on closer inspection turned out to be frosted cookies! I felt like a little boy reaching into a closet for his favourite Hulk Hogan action figure and discovering that some prankster had dressed it up in a Barbie outfit.
Sidling into a corner, I beckoned one of the bouncers over and asked him what was going on.
“It’s sad”, he said.
“Tragic”, I concurred. “But why?”
“No, no… it’s SAD. You know, Singles Awareness Day. It’s Valentine’s Day for single people. Though, now that you mention it, this is rather a sad crowd,” he cast a practiced eye around.
It was that time of year again, when the ghost of St. Valentine walks abroad, his grasping fingers leaving no wallet un-emptied. I read somewhere that this St. Valentine used to be a kindly old man, who was put to death by an evil Emperor for marrying loving couples against the Royal decree. I suspect this is a bit of revisionist nonsense cooked up by the marketing departments of Hallmark and De Beers working together. My own wholly unsubstantiated theory is that St. Valentine, if he existed at all, was a Machiavellian villain who was stabbed to death by a medieval boyfriend after he’d been assaulted with advertisements for heart shaped pendants and ear rings.
Still ruminating on the evils of historians run amok, I joined one of the tables, and was given some frosting and a few cookies. One of the guys across the table looked up at me and smiled — “You don’t have this nonsense where you grew up, do you?”
I assured him that we do indeed have Valentine’s Day celebrations in India, and of course the entire table clamoured for more details on how Indians celebrate this blot on the landscape of humanity.
In India, I explained, Valentine’s Day is celebrated as a team sport. There are two types of teams — the Lovers and the Hooligans. The Lovers tend to be couples who may be dressed pretty much as they please, but the Hooligans adhere to a stricter dress code — single men in khaki shorts, often shirtless and, in a phallic Freudian twist of overcompensation, carrying wooden sticks. The Lovers walk hand in hand and wander around parks and malls, trying to have a good time. The Hooligans run around smashing storefronts, chasing down couples, beating them up, and generally behaving like retarded Neanderthals on crack. Policemen act as umpires, taking an impartial and disinterested view of proceedings, while notching up points for both teams. Nobody really wins in this game, I concluded.
I was expecting a polite round of applause for a tale well told, but there was silence around the table.
I found my bouncer friend at my elbow again, but he wasn’t smiling this time. Rather quickly, I found myself standing outside on the street again, but I did manage to smuggle two of the cookies out in my pocket with me. The nice pink heart shaped ones.
I love the way they crumble in my mouth.
(Papi Menon is a writer and technologist based in San Francisco)
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