If tokenism is what relations are about, then the Americans beat the others in it. The token days remembering relations are endless. Father’sday, mother’sday, brother’sday pets day, sister’sday, friendship day and the list is growing. Almost all these days (except Mother’sDay) were all inventions of the 90s. And its would be no surprise that they all have their origin, except the Mother’sDay of course, in the United States of America. The Grandparents Day was actually invented by a global card-making company.
From hippyism to gayism to AIDS and now Valentines Day, the scourge of the West keeps visiting us intermittently. All celebrations begin with opening champagne bottle and end with noise that passes for music and body shaking that’scalled ?dance? in streets and discotheques.
In a culture where mother, father and the teacher have been placed on par or above god, ?remembering mother? seems a joke. But the fad is catching on. In societies where families are fragmented, like America, where single parenting is the norm, such expressions of remembrance day gels. The greedy market manipulators make a kill in the billion-dollar business, selling love at a premium, to hollow buyers.
Gifts, loud dancing and late nights?it’sa standardized commerce-dictated potpourri for celebrations. A vulgar display of sleaze, sex and smooching is what all imported celebrations are about. The cause for celebration can be anything from remembering the father to the husband to friends or even pets.
Mother’sDay is believed to have originated in the Ancient Greek empire as a worship of Mother Earth, coinciding with spring, some 250 years before Christ. In Rome too there was a similar festival to a Mother Goddess in March. The Mother’sday was adopted in the US as late as 1914.
The Valentine’sDay that rages in the newspapers (especially English) and gift shops traces its origin to a Saint Valentine of Rome, which was not actually a love story. He opposed the then ruler, against a royal order on marriages. The modern day celebrations have only borrowed the name and the probable date. It is even doubtful if its official history. The festivities have nothing to with the spirit of the ?original? theory. In today’sglobal economy, the Valentine’sDay is nothing but a commercial proposition, where love goes to the highest bidder. Among the neo-youth, it’san excuse for flaunting their money power and capacity to spend among the opposite sex. In public schools, girls take pride in getting the maximum number of v-cards.
Those who earn in Dollars and Rupees by the celebrations boost it also. So the newspapers are splashed with special offers. TV channels have special programmes and serials devote their episodes.
Consider the facts. In India alone, according to some estimates, 30 million SMS were exchanged, 50 lakh cards sent and a 1000 tonnes of flowers presented?all to tell your loved one you loved them, actually!!! The promoters are pleased. The rich India is estimated to have spent a mind-boggling Rs. 1000 crore in conveying their love! While the estimates might have been hiked up to indicate the popularity of the day, there is little doubt that big money is playing a huge role in spreading the remembrance days.
It is not as though the West has taught us to celebrate. Children in India grow up celebrating the birthday of Rama and Krishna. In Tamil Nadu, the wedding anniversaries of Rama, Krishna and Shiva are elaborate religious rituals, where people take the sides of bride and groom. The fine clothes offered to the gods are distributed to an economically weaker family, every year. Our celebrations have a poise and piety. Our brother’sdays are marked by the lighting of lamp and applying tilak. Our festivities and celebrations relate to nature and our values have been handed through generations.
Someone asked: its okay, if you don’twant to celebrate Valentine’sDay. But why stop others from doing it? Why act the moral police? The answer is obvious. The imported celebrations are against our genre, nibbling at our culture. It is interfering in a very negative way at our value system, our social structure.
Then there is this question, why must all celebrations be a display of crass commercialism. Whose need is it that emotions are exhibited between people just one day a year? The celebrations have no social content. The countries, from where such celebrations are emanating, are themselves grappling to restore some sense of purpose in their festivals. Their Churches are interfering, their activist groups are working in the field, their intelligentsia is working out means to bring a semblance of involvement in their family and social orders. Should rich cultures like ours pick up what they are discarding?
If we have cherished values in us today, it is because our predecessors had cared enough to preserve it. It is binding on us to do the same for our posterity.
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