Colonoscopy of Valentine’s Day

I have a friend. Let’s just call her… Juliet. I am texting her via WhatsApp one fine day. I notice her WhatsApp status. It goes something like this –



*heart* *rose* *wine glass* *kiss*
TOMORROW– Our day of LOVE
*kiss* *wine glass* *rose* *heart*



Usually I’m not someone whose interest is piqued by such corny status updates. I mean I read the aforesaid update, and then simply move onto reading the next one. Catch my drift?

But there was something about this particular status which made me go back to it. This update was corny of the first order. It was screaming out ‘senti’! I couldn’t help but bring up the topic of her status update while texting her. My curiosity got the better of me. That, and plus I was supremely bored. Our conversation was slowly turning very mundane. So there’s that too.

Anyways, coming back, I ask her about her status. I say, “Hey Juliet, I couldn’t help but notice your status update. What’s up with that?” She gushes, and then she replies, “Yes Chirag, it’s for my boyfriend. (Romeo, of course!) It’s V-Day tomorrow idiot!”

‘Oh. Yeah. Sure. Valentine’s Day. Yay!’ I said to myself. I forgot that it’s the 14th of February tomorrow. And also I just got abused by the ‘Queen of Senti’. All this happened within a second’s time. This is so not cool.

From there on, she spoke about the beauty of the so-called ‘Day of Love’. She spoke. She spoke. And then she spoke some more.

I listened. I tried to understand. I tried harder. I got confused. I tried again. I gave up. After what seemed like a crash course in thermo-nuclear-dynamic-aeronautic physics, we finally texted ‘goodbye’ to each other. There are only a handful of instances where I have felt more relieved than I did when I kept my phone aside that moment.

This little chat with Juliet got me thinking. What is so special about Valentine’s Day? I mean it’s just a regular day in February. Now someone reading this article might respond with “It’s the day of Love” the way Juliet did a while ago. So I ask, is this the ONLY day when you can love your significant other, and hate the shit out of him/her for the remaining 364 days? You don’t need a specific day to express love, do you?

A quick Google search reveals that Valentine’s Day originated in the honor of a certain gentleman called Saint Valentine all those years ago, hence resulting in the christening of ‘Valentine’s Day’. A noble gesture. Legend has it that he was locked up in prison, and he wrote the world’s first ever love letter. The only problem was, that he wrote the letter to his jailer’s daughter. I truly salute that man for his guts. He would have probably imagined – ‘Man, I’m bored. I’m as it is hatching eggs here behind these bars, I might as well mess around with the jailer. I’ve got nothing to lose.’

Okay now back to the present again. This Valentine’s Day is the big day for Juliet. She would go shopping a day prior to Valentine’s. She would end up spending almost double the initial allocated budget on clothes and more than double the number of initially expected hours in multiple stores. She would get up early morning of the 14th of February, rush to the saloon and do their XYZ stuff. Come back home, try on the same dress a hundred times, examine herself carefully for hours, and still end up undecided on the color of the heels that would go better with the dress and her nail polish, and finally go meet her Romeo, still unsure of her overall attire.

Our Romeo would buy a new shirt, apply excess gel to set a stud-type look, empty the perfume bottle on his body, carry shades and then go meet his Juliet.

This is what every Romeo and every Juliet do nowadays. After all, it’s the day of love. It’s just for one day, right? After today, they will be able to love each other directly after 365 days, hence they decide to make the most of it today itself.

You’ll are probably thinking that I have such a strong negative and cold view towards something so positive, warm and pure – love. Is it because I have somehow managed to always be single during Valentine’s Day? Perhaps. Will I turn into another Romeo if I ever celebrate Valentine’s Day with my Juliet? I don’t know about that. Will I have a choice? Yes. The choice of loving my Juliet throughout the year, so that I don’t have to wait for a stupid day all year long, just so that I can express my love for her. Did I just use some heavy philosophy? Yes. Am I surprised with myself? Hell Yeah!

Also, I believe Saint Valentine would be proud of me if he is up there, reading this. He would feel justice is finally done to Valentine’s Day. No?