Saturday, February 14, 2026

Sipra's diary: Valentine Day - 2026


 It seems Valentine Day has come too early.  1st  January crossed the time too fast, snow and icy days kept us captive inside the home for a long time Beautiful bouquet of roses was delivered by post to my daughter in the morning to remind me the special day .It is a sunny bright morning .

I wrote several articles on Valentine Day I will repost one from them for now .

                    Broken Heart  

Starting from the youth to the end of life,

All thirsty hearts wait to be pierced 

With some sugarcoated arrow in the heart .

Life  has no charm without romance; 

It is better to be wounded and ooze, 

Rather than a barren  life  to chose.

Oozing heart caused by failure love 

Inscribes in blood long-lasting  

love - lyric  and melodious music 

That lingers long to  inspire  sensitive spirit.

An arrow piercing the the red heart

Symbolizes the vibrant juvenile love  

But random display of  Valentines' cards

Makes the image funny, naive and ridiculous!

But how heart can be broken ?

Is it of glass,  metal, or plastic?

It is a lump: soft and sensitive .

Is the 'broken heart' an utter literary fallacy?

Or a metaphor of intense emotion,

Popularly known as  depression.

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The theme of the poem focuses on the show-off or the plight of 'True' love: which is  gasping  under the piles of displaying cards;  it   prompted me to compose this poem .

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Sunday, February 18, 2018

Valentine's Day: 'Commercialised celebration of love'





Valentine’s day:  Commercialised   celebration of love
 Manhattan,NY
Feb 16, 2018
I was coming to home from doctor’s clinic, Columbus Circle. It was an enough cold evening. But lots of crowd was flowing on the road As soon as I saw a joyful young couple with red bouquet of flowers , I remembered “it  is Valentine’s Day!’ Among the crowd I saw only two or three  young couples with hand-in-hand and boquete of flowers .Most were found in groups. My eyes caught hold few male couples ,both young and middle-aged male couples clutching each others’ hands warmly .I twitted them silently ‘are you happy and “gay’! ……… 
So in this megacity high-tech super digital land of face book and twitter ,the  warmth of romance in valentine’s Day  brews much flavor among  the group or clan in place of  clan-destine romance of  love between two hearts in the  traditional world:  a game of change !
 But who was this St. Valentine and how his name was associated with love and romance?  I came to learn, mostly from internet and books  that this very old tradition originated from a Roman festival called “Lupercalia’ in 3rd or 5th century AD;. Its history is shrouded  in mystery. There are different legends spanned around it. 

Some story says Roman emperor Claudius11banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Because  he believed that love and bondage of family life discouraged the Roman men to serve in the Army. 
St valentine defied it. Emperor Claudius11 executed two men both named Valentine on Feb14th of different years in the 3rd century AD. Their martyrdom was  duly honoured by the catholic Church with the celebration of St Valentine’s Day.

 Isn’t it an irony that modern ‘day of love’  is based on the unjustified martyrdom(!)(or murder,who knows)   of someone for courage and honesty?... 
It seems, less we know the history, more  we will be happy.
Other story is more brutal.  In the festival of Lupercalia  men  would sacrifice a goat  and a dog. Then  the young women who stood  naked in a line  would be whipped by those drunken men with the hides of the sacrificed   animals just slain. It was believed that this ‘ritual’ would make them fertile. It  also included a match-making lottery{s-o- ridiculous!} in which young men drew the names of  women from a jar.
And they will be coupled up accordingly to fertile the the field for future battle of brutality! The Roman introduced this festival with the purpose to expel  Pegan  rituals. Later on the Christians covered up  the cruelty by patching 'colour  of love' upon it.  The literary works of Chaucer, Shakespeare romanticized valentine Day in their work and it flourished reputation throughout Europe as significant cultural, religious  and ‘commercial celebration of love’.


Today valentine’s Day contains vestiges of both Christian  and  ancient  Roman traditions. 

Anyway, festival means business and Valentine’s Day is a big business :bumper sale of cards, balloons,  flowers, food, movies  and what not(sale of  marital loyality in'Tinder' love or in 'Just for lunch' for introductory love--- where the market has no sunset throughout the year instead of a single fixed day)! It has become almost global festival in uprising countries




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