Celebrating Love

Love is in the air !!!

Hey wait ... did I say it right ? may be not. What I meant to say was " Love is on air !".
Thats true , none publicized Valentine's day more vehemently than the FM stations ; from daybreak to night of Feb 14th all FM stations were competing with each other to be the most romantic, most 'in love' station. As there is no dearth of love songs in our movies, all they had to do was play them, with useless trivia thrown in between. For all my cynicism about celebrating Valentine's day I have to admit, I did enjoy the romantic songs ;)

" Pehla nasha, pehla ghumar ..." even now transports me to my dream world, but thats just me.
What is beyond my comprehension is , whoever got the idea of celebrating Valentine's day in India ? In the Western world there are fewer festivals so they make the best of the few occasions they get , but not so in India ... what with festivals round the year, weddings, pre-wedding and post-wedding festivities, house-warming ceremonies, naming ceremonies, scores of Jayanti's, national holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and the rest, can Indians really afford to spend money and time for another celebration in the name of 'love' , and if so, what are other festivals for , I would call them "celebrations of love" too ... and not just between two individuals, these are events that bring different sections of the society together.

This reminds me of an incident , it was during my husband's cousin's wedding and my parents and sis had attended it. The cousin was being married off to a guy whose family had settled in the US. When her new father-in-law was introduced to me and my family, he was very happy to see the "extended family , that these things happen only in India".

So let the spirit be alive, let love light up lives ... but lets not make it a ritual; lets be generous with gifts of smiles, hugs and understanding , and not restrict it to red roses and balloons. Lets love and be loved in return , every day and every moment, lets not restrict it to a single day.