Cupid goes stupid

LALITA SRIDHAR

Spring is in the air and so, it seems, is love. Particularly come 14th and February. On Valentine's Day you really get to paint the town red - with Cupid going stupid over hearts from marts. Never something that can be suppressed into sobriety, romance looks all set to provide just that dash of festivity to the otherwise feeble February.

Love would have to be blind to miss all that's happening - and getting ready to happen. Not for nothing did Madhuri Dixit surround herself with more (red, heart-shaped) balloons than a kid on a beach thus proving that Dil To really Paagal Hai. If you thought love wasn't a commodity that could be sold, then you thought wrong. Cards and candles, roses and balloons, jewellery and theme dinners, gifts and gimmicks - the temptations are in place and so are the ads.Love looks all set to make the world go round - and sharing the ride are some moneyspinners too.

The watchdogs of Indian culturalism could call it Westernisation or whatever but love, having forgotten to be blind, now turns deaf. And no, with so much drama in the air, girls aren't interested in playing wilting wallflowers. They do the gifting and giving with equal gusto. In Mumbai, the hype affects all types - from websites to venerable newspapers, contests jostle for space beside column centimetres. For poetry ranging from the insipid to the inspired, your messages win you the sort of goodies you have trouble buying with the pocket money which everyone gets these days.

The Valentine's Day dates back to 270 A.D. when the Roman Emperor Caldius II banned marriage in his quest for fearless soldiers . Proving him wrong wasBishop Valentine who secretly organised solemnisation of vows for pining lovers. Arrested, executed and eventually conferred with the sainthood, he restored the sight of the jailer's blind daughter while still incarcerated and even penned her a letter with that eventually eponymous sobriquet "From Your Valentine". And if all that's happening is anything to go by, love just proved to be forever.

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