Colour 'em red

There has to be at least a few people in the country who will breathe a sigh of relief when the first half of February gets over. And as long as these people exist, there is hope that sanity will prevail – eventually.

Come February, and all the major malls of the city deck themselves up in as much red, pink and white as they can cram in. The balloon-sellers and flower shops charge an exorbitant price for the demand of the day, the perfect long-stemmed rose and the red, heart-shaped balloons. Even beggars, especially street children, turn Cupids and sell red roses at impossible prices.

That of course is how things go about in the ‘offline’ world. But cyberspace celebrates the much-awaited (or much-dreaded) Valentine’s Day in a number of ways as well. Just enter ‘Valentine’s Day’ on any search engine and you will get whopping thousands of results. And these are not the type of results which would be totally useless and make you want to bang your head against the wall. These are specific websites totally related to your search term. For the sake of simplicity, these websites can easily be categorised into two sections.

These websites include regular e-card, forums, discussions and gifts. One of the well-known website for e-cards is 123 Greetings http://www.123greetings.com where you can find numerous e-cards adorned with mushy, sweet messages. In fact, for Valentine alone, 123 Greetings actually has revamped its entire layout in red and white, and not just the section on Valentine’s Day e-cards.

Another such website is of course Hallmark (http://www. hallmark.com) – the unofficial synonym of Valentine’s Day to say the least. Log onto the website, and the first thing that hits you in the face is the awful amount of red. And if you are one of those people on whose list of favourite colours, red does not even deserve to find a place, then be prepared to get some real red shocks.

Hallmark is an amusing website to browse through. The most revolting of gifts bear the label ‘sold out.’ Whether they really have been sold out or Hallmark has decided to put an air of importance is something that can be left to your imagination. But one cannot imagine who in the heaven’s name would want two stuffed monkeys hugging each other with a background of two red and white vases, complete with red roses in them. Of course, if you want to play a practical joke on someone and can dish out enough money, then that is a different story altogether.

Another category has websites designed exclusively for this day. (The amount of free time some people have on their hands is actually incredulous.) These websites actually feature hundreds of love stories, love poems and other mushy stuff.

For some people, occasions like this are a waste of time, but for others they prove to be meaningful since there is so much apathy in this world, and festivals like this are a welcome waft of fresh air. There are yet others who like to think that these festivals are pretty harmless and who are unable to fathom what the fuss is all about. More people fall in the latter category. They just do not think anything is wrong with it.

But consider this scenario. You are a young person and a member of Orkut, Friendster and Naseeb – regular social networking websites. You have a number of friends in the opposite sex, people you have never met in real life but know only through these websites. Come Valentine’s Day, and you suddenly realise that there should be something to express your ‘sentimental feelings’ for at least some of these people, and then you start dreaming of nice mushy stuff (say, hugging monkeys?)

Sorry to interrupt those dreams but have you stopped to wonder that the person you are fancying yourself in love, may not be the person he/she claims to be? This is actually a regular warning that is given out to all chat and social networking addicts. But February 14, somehow has really weird effect on people – nothing sensible makes sense. And all warnings seem to evaporate in thin air. If someone tells you they are ordering something for you from Hallmark, will you be naïve enough to give them your postal address? And what sort of consequences would it have if you are actually that naïve?

Worse case scenario is when you actually believe that the sender of those over-the-top sappy e-cards truly believes every word written in it. Hence, you swoon and you remain on cloud nine for an entire week. But wait, these cards are virtual! If you are on the receiving end, you can have no way of knowing if the sender actually meant each word, or was simply sending the same e-card to fifty more people in the address book.

However, most people in this country do not have the kind of money that is needed to throw around at Hallmark. And if they do throw away money, then that should be your warning signal to stay away from such people in the first place. No sane person would need hugging monkeys to make their point.

But, as mentioned above, words of wisdom stop making sense on February 14. At the end of the day, guys end up in heavy debt with all the mental stress that comes with it, and girls most of the times are miserable because they didn’t get anything or got something which was not expensive enough. So what sort of happiness and breath of fresh air is Valentine’s Day spreading especially through websites? If love needs stuffed toys and red roses on February 14 to survive in the first place, then the world is much better off without it.