From the technologies we use, to the shirts and trousers that we wear, everything is western. The very language in which you have asked the question and I am answering it is western. Our basic education system is western so why make so much noise about celebrations being a western concept. Mythology suggests that many of the gods and goddesses of this soil were in love with each other before they got married. So, love is not a western concept. It is universal.
Though I wish we can do without the dates in the calendar to remind us to express our love, to pay our gratitude to parents and to re- connect us to our teachers, I also understand man needs reminding for remembering. I would rather have Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day and fulfill my responsibilities, than not to execute my responsibilities at all.
The problem with most of the people living in the 21st century is not that they don`t love but that they don`t express. Our primary relationship is with technology. Even our relationship with people has become primarily through technology. As a result, the prime casualty has been our expressions. There is no smile in a smiley. LOL doesn’t reverberate. SMS hugs and e-hugs lack the warmth of touch. Human to human, emotions have a different depth; through technology it can only be shallow. The primary issue is not ingratitude but lack of expressiveness and demonstrativeness. As a generation we are losing out on the ability to make our feelings visible. That’s why we struggle even to write personal letters, and we rely on the greeting card industry to express ourselves. That’s why we need Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. We need special days to trigger the expression of appropriate emotions. Our being so expressive on such days is a consolation that feelings have not been lost; just the expressions have been lost .
So, this Valentine`s day, acknowledge that there is an old man in the house who had been on his feet, working and working, much after he had earned enough for himself. This man ensured in every possible way that each one of us would have a better standard of life than he did. There is a teenager in your very house who is very confused about whether you are looking at her as a child. Your stance seems to have such double standards that it really confuses the teenager. Its time that we take our parents out on a date, spend time with them and show them in ways they understand that we care for them. Could this be our way of celebrating this Valentine’s Day with a difference? Can we go to our schools, colleges and institutes and meet our teachers who served as a turning point in our lives and give them self- written cards of love. Bring life into your expressions and thus you will bring back life into your relationships.