Valentine’s or Galentine’s? So not the question

Womansplaining

Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and ‘fancy’ (which is a euphemism for all retail outlets that don’t really know what they’re selling) stores that have no business being in the stuffed toy business will have poufy red hearts on display wherever you may roam in the city. You can avert your eyes all you want, and grimace at the tackiness in your involuntary line of vision, and you can look down upon younglings brazenly holding hands, among other things, (hand-holding and related PDA used to be surreptitious in my time, I’ll have you know), and you can pooh-pooh at the ‘Hallmarkification’ of Valentine’s Day in this country all you want, but red-heart accoutrements, including balloons and display merchandise in flaming pink, will be hard to miss.

In some corners of the city, Valentine’s Day has had a spotty record, though. A few years ago, Pramod Muthalik of Ram Sene, a right-wing Hindutva outfit, had sent his sena (army) of self-professed custodians of decency around the city, threatening young hand-holding couples (the in-between generation between my surreptitious one and the current brazen one) with either marriage or shame, or possibly both. Mangalsutras (aka, the tie that binds) of the one-gram gold variety were kept ready for these unsuspecting romancers, and those that were still figuring out whom to marry between choices one, two, and three, suddenly found themselves tied down with binds, er, bound down with ties… whichever is the correct version of that phrase. This blatant “violation” of Indian culture by the in-between generation garnered much attention, not just in public parks, but also in pubs, where women who were seen with a drink in hand were labelled ‘loose’ and ‘immoral.’

This elicited hoots of derision from many feminist corners, most notable of them being the Pink Chaddi campaign that attempted to, among other things, convince the put-upon right-wingers that neither the colour pink nor delicate underwear were mortal enemies of Indian culture. Though the proponents of this non-violent protest managed to send hundreds of pink underthings to Muthalik’s offices, they also came under criticism for trivialising the issue. Which is neither here nor there because hello, unwanted mangalsutra you can’t even pawn for quick cash.

Should the sena still be active, could we please get some activism towards banning poufy hearts and balloons that profess love until the end of time, the kind that somehow inevitably crop up everywhere? Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during her Budget 2020 speech that a “marriage taskforce” would be set up to “recommend marriageable age for women”. Could this task force also be deployed to public spaces in Bengaluru this Valentine’s Day to make sure 16-something hand-holders are safe from cheap mangalsutra-wielding activists?

What am I saying? Valentine’s Day is so yesterday, according to the great wannabe platform of our times, where every trend begins and goes to die a few days later: social media. The latest trend to hit this time of year is Galentine’s Day, which according to Urban Dictionary, is celebrated on February 13, the day before Valentine’s Day. It’s a day for celebrating “the love you have for your lady friends”, whether they’re single or not. And here I was thinking every day that is not Valentine’s Day already does that. Silly me.

As if International Women’s Day wasn’t enough of an insult.

And in honouring that time-tested tradition of analogue goes digital, the social media equivalents of poufy hearts have begun their onslaught everywhere you look: heart emojis, 4-course meal plans for one, things to do this Galentine’s Day listicles, etc. Sigh. I’m just going to hibernate until this week is done.