Blog: For the love of Valentine

By Alice Peter

Eyes met, numbers were exchanged and a Facebook friend request was sent on New Years Eve. Meanwhile excuses were made to text first, the arrow of the cupid struck and love enveloped them both. What followed were 39 days of digital purdah and hushed proclamations of love over the phone. On day 40, however, the onset of something called Valentine’s Day sparked an impermissible rush of desire; a harmless desire that was soon ruled sinful by the mental jury. “What would people think; what if the police asks for a marriage certificate?” were all questions that required solid answers. Therefore, meeting in a public space was dismissed as an option but not the decision to meet altogether – outcome: a forbidden fruit syndrome.

A rather frowned upon phenomenon in Pakistani society, Valentine’s Day has otherwise provided relief to young, untainted love worldwide, since A.D. 270 approx. Every year, February 14 is marked with a massive buying and selling of heart-shaped candy and red roses. It is probably the only day of the year when one can get away with being a hopeless romantic or extra ‘cheesy’ by existing standards. What is a little difficult to get away with, however, is a red t-shirt; yeah, you might want to leave that blinding piece of clothing in the closet just for this one day.

As a citizen of Pakistan, however, the aforementioned practices are secondary. Here, only a slightly favourable approach towards celebrating Valentine’s Day leaves the best of us swamped with allegations of either being a RAW agent, or part of a ‘Yahoodi Saazish,’ One is immediately banished to the land of lost souls for supporting a supposed religiously inappropriate cultural practice. Let’s backtrack a little; notice how the previous sentence drew a jarring contrast between religion and culture? Two very different ideologies often bid against each other to debate Valentine’s Day, or the commemoration of any other day that is borrowed from the West.

On one hand, ironically, we take pride in Lata Mangeshkar’s comment on late Mehdi Hassan’s voice that reminds her of Bhagwan, but on the other, we stand divided on atrocities such as honour killings. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 943 women were murdered in 2011 alone, after being accused of tarnishing their families' honour. The alternative approach of segregating the genders, however, also works counterproductively.

Thus, the question to be asked is: when expressions such as music and art have been accepted as possessing no religion or boundary, then why must the feast of love have one?

The historic account of Valentine’s Day describes the turmoil of an imprisoned Saint Valentine when he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. Before his death, he allegedly signed his last letter to her, “from your Valentine,” hence, the expression. A similar tale of unfinished love such as the folklores of Heer Ranjha and Laila Majnu, the day is a wholly time-honoured excuse to spoil your loved one; and since when is loving considered a crime?

Writer's bio: As a 21-year old female, born and raised in Karachi, I have had my love-hate phases with the city; the oddity of both these emotions, I believe, somehow collides at some point. I could have written about my educational background and my aspirations in this bio, but where’s the fun in that? This blog is my chance to identify with the soul I was born with, more than the person I have group up to be; it is coming up for fresh air amid Karachi’s pollution and actually admiring the city for what it really is – a tormented lover.