When We Talk About Love

Valentine’s Day has proved to be a pretty irresistible concept,ever since Chaucer’s chance allusion to an epileptic Roman martyr was snatched up,and the legend embroidered over the years,by poets and lovers and tradesmen.

Different parts of the world have their own versions — so in Japan,it’s a strictly codified affair,where women give men,mainly their co-workers,chocolate. Men return the favour a month later on “White Day”. Most of the world has enthusiastically embraced the day — even the glowering moral guardians in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia,or our own Ram Senes and Shiv Senas pay a special attention to the event. In fact,even the backlash against the celebration is considered an index of women’s freedoms — the easier it gets for some women in traditional societies to choose their own romantic fate,the more likely that Valentine’s Day would attract the ire of these loveless conservatives.

But cranks and fundamentalists aren’t the only people who hate the day. Many others resent its compulsoriness,its encroachment on the most stubbornly private,particular feelings. “Be mine,Valentine.” “You and me,together forever.” “To the woman I’d marry all over again.” But then again,what else is there to say really? Love tends to reduce you to clichés. As Roland Barthes observed,it is the realm where you confront the pitiability of language — where words are “both too much and too little,excessive and impoverished”.

But Valentine’s Day confines itself to socially acceptable,bland and reciprocal romance,rather than the complicated,messy ardours that people have. In fact,it is the one time when you feel your isolation most keenly,if your romantic situation is even slightly at odds with the norm. Unrequited love,inappropriate love,indecorous love,helpless feelings for someone of the wrong age or sex — or a lack of feeling for anyone — these you keep to yourself,even as the world breaks out in hearts and flowers around you.

Then there are those who loathe Valentine’s Day for the cheerful commerce around romantic love. It wasn’t meant to be like that — love is supposed to the one wayward,subversive emotion that respects no official order. Amour fou,mad love that makes nonsense of all logic,was the great surrealist motto. To mock it by giving it one specially sanctioned day,to strip it of all surprise and spark,to mass-produce declarations of feeling — the idea is offensive to them.

But then again,Valentine’s Day is radically inauthentic. It makes no secret of the fact. I don’t really know anyone who buys into the whole silly heart-festooned Valentine’s thing. But that doesn’t make you immune to the expectations created by the day. There’s no missing it — little by little,the silken shoots of romance invade and take over the newspaper. The news is about Valentine’s Day protests,the food section is about aphrodisiacs,the travel section about romantic getaways,the books section about love poetry,and the commercials are sweet seduction itself. You have absorbed so many words and images about love,in so many direct and oblique ways,that you’re pushed to pay some thought to your own love life.

I remember Valentine’s Day in middle school was a pretty charged event — and it was clearly a day that tested your popularity. Knowing that there was fat chance my crush would ever notice me,all I wanted was to avoid awkward moments with anyone else. Later,in college,the social oppressiveness of it struck me — like you needed some scrap or token to confirm your value in a crowd. I knew someone in my dorm who sent herself flowers on Valentine’s day,and,honestly,it made sense at the time.

And if you ended up being single on too many Valentine’s Days,as I did,you ended up going to anti-Valentine’s parties (that are really Valentine’s parties at heart,meant for you to bump into someone nice). And if you’re in a relationship,no matter how much you scoff at the construct,you still secretly want some tribute. So people approach the day with some dread,pressurised into producing a flourish,an emotional extravagance of some kind.

It’s easy to make fun of Valentine’s Day and its shallow,sentimental ceremonies. I’ve been re-reading Madame Bovary,a novel that takes on the subject of kitschy love with knife-edge clarity. Emma’s head is addled with romance and tinsel,and she is incapable of “believing anything that does not manifest itself in conventional form”. And yet,you can’t help but relate to her yearning,for something that will take her out of the bleak particulars of her life. Haven’t we all looked to love to salvation,at some point or the other?

It’s the same with Valentine’s Day — for all its artifice,it’s still kind of sweet. It’s tacky in the way we’re all a bit tacky,susceptible to great sillinesses in the name of love. And,at the risk of sounding like the opening of Love,Actually,it does open your eyes to the affection all around you.

amulya.gopalakrishnan@expressindia.com