Mirror
Magazine Techno
Page by Harendra Alwis
|
||||
|
All
in the name of love? From the beginning of February to the end, all you see are pictures of rosy red hearts, ‘I love you’ cards and other ploys of the commercial world to lure you into their marketing schemes. This is not a heinous crime, but do most of us get caught up in the commercial aspect of the day that we lose sight of its meaning? Some may claim that the only people who have ‘Anti-Valentine’s Day’ views are those ‘sad singles’. Not true. Many couples, married or unmarried, say that not only is it a waste of money but the concept of celebrating love on one day is ridiculous. If you love someone, then you should either show your love for him/her through a simple gesture or kind word in your day to day life rather than make a huge ‘song and dance’ of it on one day and do nothing the rest of the year round. Not everyone celebrates Valentine’s Day in the same way, or with the same intensity, what is even more interesting is the fact that not everyone shares the view that Valentine’s Day should be celebrated solely with your partner, but should be a day to celebrate ‘love’ in its entirety. Parents, children, friends, grandparents and grandchildren could all celebrate this day (if at all). Celebrate the day for the right reason, is my conclusion. Getting the bigger, more expensive gift for your girl friend or potential girl friend to score points with her and to make her the envy of all her friends shouldn’t be a reason to celebrate! If you believe that giving gifts to each other is a waste of time and resources, speak out. Explain yourself to your partner, who knows, he/she might be feeling the same way. If not, a compromise can always be worked out. You may want to share a romantic candle-lit dinner with your beloved at a five star hotel or simply call him/her over to share a home cooked meal. You might buy them an expensive watch or make something for them. At the end of the day, what is important is how you do things in the name of love. Winners please contact Marisa de Silva on 2328889, 2331276 or 2326247.
If it’s for free We all have our various theories as to how it all started, but what exactly has it turned into? If Valentine’s Day was meant to be the most romantic day to give your “better half” a rose and say, “I love you”, someone or a few ‘someones’ have pretty much killed that thought. Today it seems more romantic if you were to surprise your partner on any other day. Commercialisation obviously means money, and lots of it. So come February 14 those ‘attached’ to the rich and famous spend a romantic evening under the stars at all the five star hotels, whilst the rest of us talk about how commercialised the whole thing has become. But seriously, don’t you feel obligated sometimes to buy a gift? That has got to suck… an obligation is the last thing love is supposed to be. So if most people think Valentine’s Day is far too commercialised, why is it bigger and better every year? Come the first week of February, almost every advertisement in the paper is in relation to Valentine’s Day, so much so that sometimes you even find dealers in tyres and tubes for motor vehicles promoting their products along with Valentine’s Day, which is a bit of a joke, to say the least. Maybe some of you think I am a bit too harsh and that if I so desired, a decent evening out is most certainly affordable, or maybe I am the minority who thinks the 14th is just a big spender or maybe we’re just desperate for an excuse to go out. Whatever the reason, what confuses me is, if Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about ‘love’, why is it that we restrict ourselves to buying gifts or treating our ‘acquired loved ones’? What about those we run into every day? How often does a guy buy his sister something for Valentine’s Day? How often does a daughter take her dad out for dinner? I’m
not denying the fact that it probably does happen but, how often?
It’s become far too ‘crowded’ for me, besides
you hardly get any privacy even if you were to take your partner
out because everyone else is celebrating it too. -
‘Empty Pocket’ |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Valentine’s
Day… what can I possibly say about this universally acknowledged,
heavily commercialised, well-established day, meant to celebrate
‘love’? Valentine’s day dates back to February
14, 269 AD, when a Christian priest named Valentine was executed
for secretly performing marriages during the reign of Emperor Claudius,
who had cancelled all marriages in Rome, to encourage more soldiers
to join the military. In addition, during the Middle Ages in England
and France, the day was marked as a time for love as halfway through
the second month of the year (February 14!) the birds began to pair.
For these reasons, the day was looked upon as a special day for
lovers. 