Let’s take a trip down memory lane to a kinder, gentler era when Bal Thackeray issued Valentine fatwas. While lesser mortals fretted about farmer suicides, the great man knew where the danger to our noble culture lay. Balasaheb has since shuffled off this mortal coil but the threat to fragile Indian values persists and if unchecked, will worm its way into our minds turning us all into mushy-brained Trumpclones. As the alert reader may have inferred, I am referring to Mills and Boon and as we speak, vigilantes from Kashmir to Sabarimalai are taking steps through proper channels to ‘do the needful’.
Back in the dark ages before #MeToo, we had fun things like Valentine competitions where I first read the purple prose of Shaharior, who wrote this love letter to his heartthrob, Jaan Preethi.
My dear Jaan,
Everytime I see you my heart beats faster than normal. Blood rushes through my vein at extreme force, every thought is swept away. I become week, drops of sweat gathers on my forehead. I don’t know how I loose myself somewhere with you, holding your hands in the land of dreams.
Again when you are out of my sight, I feel restless. Black clouds cover my sky. This heart needs you, two eyes only search for you.
If these are symbols of love, then I love you too very much. Today, in this Valentine's day I don’t want anything else rather than offering my love at your feet. O my Goddeess of Love, accept my offerings and say that you love me too. Yours forever etc
Now a cynic may have sniggered at the mushy sentiment while a pedant may have winced at the spelling and grammar, but there is no mistaking the heartfelt passion beating in old Shaharior the warrior. While lesser men wimpishly opted for roses, violets and heart-shaped chocolates, he chose to bare his soul in print, the world be damned. Email is for geeks, he felt, and when the results were announced, he confidently expected to top the list. If Jaan Preethi were to turn up on Feb 14th simpering coyly, that would be malai on his lassi.
Nowadays thanks to the cloying influence of M&B, poetry has been sicklied ‘oer with the pale cast of Western thought. Shaharior is history and Ronnie has taken his place. ‘Sugar is sugar, salt is salt, If you forget me it’s not my fault,’ is the burden of his song and while it rhymes in a fairly primitive fashion, it lacks that pithy, desi flavor. Ronnie strikes a smarmy, self-pitying note; not one calculated to warm the cockles of a gal’s heart.
Clearly he is suffering from M&B over-exposure: ‘Her hair the colour of ripe corn, her eyes a forget-me-not blue and a heart which seemed to whisper and coo, I love you, how I love you. He caught her close to him, pinned her soft cheek against the rough khaki of his uniform and slowly, deliberately covered her mouth in a kiss that made her forget everything in the sheer rapture of it. When his lips lifted from hers, it was like someone had cut the cables from an elevator.’ Phew, after ingesting this gloop, nowonder Ronnie is in a diabetic coma: this is the literary equivalent of swallowing Krispy Kreme doughnuts by the sackful.
If I were on the judging panel, I’d have picked Shekhar (Spear?)’sentry. He wanted his lover ‘to be his rani, and make prem biryani while they lived out their amar kahani.’ The wooden spoon would go to this insipid Yorkshire pudding of a Valentine: ‘Dear Sreemoyee, May this day bring the happiest and brightest moments of your life. I’d like to take this opportunity to whisper in your years (sic) all those evergreen words of love: Lo behold. Come 14 Feb and I give you a special invitation to my heart.’ I mean seriously, Lo behold, take this opportunity… what is this? Terms of endearment, hot pillow talk, a Biblical reference to making out?
Comparisons are odious but the author of, “Dear Viju, angelic art thou, my holy cow, Let's eat chow-chow, Sincerely yours, C.N. Aravind,” seems almost lucid by comparison. Ok, referring to the haplesss Viju as a (saintly) member of the bovine species is ill-advised and anyonesigning off ‘sincerely yours’ while appending his initialsclearly needs a swift kick in the family jewels. Where's your sense of romance, dude?
Isn’t it ironic that in the land which produced Mirza, Ghalib and Tagore we still feel the need to police youthful outpourings of love, passion and romance? Forget Valentine’s, ban Mills and Boon instead.
