That day. Can you love?

I have a friend, Nithin, a romantic. Well, a bit more than me. Romantic in the sense that he has started preparing for the surprise that he is going to give his girlfriend on Valentine's Day, a full month early.

He asked me for suggestions and then rejected them in his wisest tone. He delved in the depths of it in his mind, while I was left ignored across the table, like a lost little child peeking into the periphery of his great mind with its great ideas, hoping for attention and conversation to go along with my coffee.

I find I have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day.  There was Christmas a couple of months ago, you know with the joy and the laughter and the red fat guy, and then there was the New Year with all the beginnings. In a few weeks it's going to be Republic Day, where those great people with the great big machines on that great street, saluted by our great gentlemen, this time accompanied by the United State's first one. Can adorable little Valentine's Day match up?

Valentine’s Day as you might or might not know is celebrated on account of this dude who secretly married off couples when some king banned marriage in his land because he wanted the men to focus on war. I don’t know what happened to the king, but Valentine became St. Valentine. So there, the perfect Hindi movie.

At the offset, let me make it clear, I am not the most romantic of guys. No, no, it's not a manly macho thing, its stupid ignorant thing. We do have our share of fun with our share of playmates, but the looking-at-her-makes-my-heart-go-dum-dum thing comes along once in a blue moon to those very lucky among us. 

It's my freak of nature, my abomination. But I have always been curious, always been distinctly aware what was there and I wanted to have a share of it. Love as a topic, I have found is a seriously goofy and fascinating affair. The reason I mention this is not because I have some role in what is to come. I am just as insignificant as you are. It's because if somewhere along the line, if some of you find something weirdly weird, I want you to forgive me. And if you can't, deal with it.

Ok, my theory is love, like music was never part of our evolution. I don’t think the early man ever loved the early woman. You know, the guy in cave going hubba, hubba, hubba? The strongest, the biggest and the most resourceful of the guys got the most fertile girls. In fact the most romantic thing they must have done for each other must have been when they did not try to kill and eat other after mating. Also, how they actually figured out the mating process, that’s something to think about as well. Maybe later.

Anyway, times passed and there was the new world. There were the Romans and the Greeks and Zeus and the Persians, and while they were doing their 300, we had Aryabhata inventing zero and the Aryans running around. There were gods and saints. There were books being written and somewhere along the lines, love came about. How? We’ll never know. Then there was the middle ages and the ages after that. There was Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Two people who kill themselves because they think the other one is dead, taking along one other dude as well. Oh, the bard.

But now, here we are. The 21^st century and the world has come all around. A million changes and a millions new things. But has love evolved with us? Let's look at it. Three points. Firstly and greatly the equation between men and women has changed for the better. The idea of respecting women has finally gotten through the thick Indian skull. It’s when you are sitting in a local bus and you see a desi guy give up a seat-that is not a ladies seat-for a lady, that’s when you know that the modern world gave us something better than jeans, Aids and computers. Secondly, society’s influence has gone down. Yes there are some old people around with their wacky ideas, but we are getting wiser and pathetic ideas like purity, religion, “what will they think” and “how it's supposed to be”, is being ignored. Thirdly, cell phones, internet, video chats and Facebook, they are all nice to have around.

But my question is, are they enough? Is communication and respect and freedom to choose, enough? What about the love? Or where is the love? Have we grown up too much? Have we gone too corporate? Have we left it behind? Where is the madness? Where are the poems, the love letters, the songs and the big huge gestures? What about staring deep into her eyes and thinking about amazingly perfect she is?

Yes, we have our plans, and egos and mind games and manuals. Yes we can make money and get awesome bikes and go to gyms and straighten your hairs, but what about the act of being in love? What about that? I think we have to reassess our priorities. And if you are one of those who’ve read through it and laugh cause you just care about that one other  thing, trust me, there comes a moment when you know you’d felt much holding that somebody’s hand than having orgasms with this somebody else. I think the world comes around to all of us. Why don’t we surrender ourselves to the beauty of that which is beautiful?

Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be for the couples to like and for us single or recently single people to hate and moan about it on Facebook. It's not only about that someone. It's about reassessing the importance of being in love. So, let's just go fall in love. I know, I know, it's gooey and icky, but we if we can risk lung cancer with every puff, why can't we risk a little heart break. That’s just as bad-ass. A friend recently told me about her guy. About how he “makes her feel like a princess.” Isn’t that just freaking awesomeness? Who wouldn’t want to be that lucky guy, to have a girl say that about you? I know I would.

So, again, fall in love. Let's be romantic. Hold her and tell her how special she is to you, how she is god greatest creation, how grateful you are for every moment she is with you, for every breath she takes. How all you can think about when you look at her is how magnificently perfect she is. And mean all of it.

Let's give our hearts away. Let's bleed inside and let's watch the rain and sunlight. Let's write songs and poems, let's be foolish and irritating. Let's day dream and be gooey. It’s a beautiful life, why don’t we live it in a beautiful way.

Everybody reading this will die in the next 50 years. Fact. So, why don’t live for ourselves? It's never about the stories that you’ll tell your grand-children, it's about the stories that you’ll tell yourself. The ones that you hold deep in your heart. It's not about the moments of glory, it's about the moments of happiness, of pure joy, pure being the key word.

And if my ramblings and words don’t mean anything, or you don’t care about love, I’d like to leave you with words of Doe Zantamata. I have no idea who he, or she is, but I am assuming, a nice person…..