Valentine is not Clementine

by Panchamee Hewavissenti

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Valentine's Day is 72 hours away. Do our youth know who the real Valentine is? Or are they yet trekking on the wrong path with a wrong perception about Valentine?

In the early days of bygone century, popular western music star Doris Day sang the heart rending composition - "Oh! my darling Clementine" - Yes, there was much love and romance in the lyrics meant for Clementine.

Love is a beautiful ornament but, a double edged razor too. Valentine's story goes beyond the boundaries of what Clementine endured. Today, we talk of 'Love' in this column with Valentine's day round the corner. Reading down you would know the role of Valentine in its correct perspective.

Someone once defined a great lover thus "A true lover is a person who can satisfy one person in his life long trek and can be satisfied by that person throughout his journey.

A true lover is not someone who goes from person to person. Any dog can do that". Since hypocrisy and unfaithfulness are abundantly observed in society today, the above phrase appears to have a great impact. Love is a most sought after word everywhere on earth. Pristine love is hard to find and define.

Patterns of love

Love exists in many forms. It is often an intriguing tiding. Love is not always a manifestation of a relationship between two people of opposite sex. Love can have many interpretations.

The story of Majnoo's love for Laila is well known. His extreme love for her killed him. Whereas the story of Korah, it was the love of wealth. And for the Pharaoh it was the love of the position and power.

Love origins in the heart of a mother as she sees her newly born child's face. Love of a mother is sublime, which doesn't go parallel with any kind of love in the world. It is a blend of care, attachment and sentiments. For a mother, her child is the most precious thing in the world.

Mother offers her portion of food to the child and satisfy his hunger while she starves. That is the mother's love. Love of a father is quite different and pragmatic than that of a mother. Where as the love of a child could not be as deep as that of parents.

Parents' love is dedicated, profound and serious. It does not exist in a romantic relationship or any other union. It has its own characteristics and feathers that are unique from other types of love.

One can also receive love from one's siblings which is based on fulfilling the other sibling's requirements with advice and guidance. Love from a sibling doesn't remain as it is throughout or in the same quantity. It has fluctuations with the advance of the time, commitments and responsibilities.

Romance

A real love requires commitment, attachment, intimacy, mutual understanding and mutual respect. If one or many proponents are lacking in a relationship the strength of the relationship could retrogress.

Caring for each other and giving an assurance of safety, investing the time and energy and affection are necessary to make the partner feel important are essential to maintain a sound romantic courtship.

Intimacy is another factor which determines the closeness and the familiarity of the relationship.

Hypocrisy

There is no psychological explanation as to what the basic reason for a person to be a hypocrite in love.

Social instances often show that a person cheats his lover simply for material gain and temporary pleasure.

A pseudo - lover is often very attractive and has a wonderful charisma to attract the partner.

He often manages to win the other's heart by use of astonishing selection of nice words and gestures.

A false lover tries to avoid direct eye contact with the partner, neglects his or her needs, and maintains a selfish and headstrong attitude in his or her dealings with the partner.

Secret love

This type of love is characterised by its passionate and impulsive nature even in the events unfolded in the world history. These lovers carry on a concealed love affair to keep safe from social taboos, cultural conventions, moral standards and social hindrances.

The most conspicuous example of secret love is extra - marital love where either party or one party is married. Secret lovers take special care to keep everything in their affair hushed up from outer world.

And often the closest friends of a secret lover is unaware of it. Sometimes lovers who are too much close in family relationship, maintain their affair believing that their marital union will never materialise. What really happens in secret relationship is that two persons who have no chance of having a public union, develop an affair after observing a single attractive trait in the other.

These kind of affairs seldom have long life span because they can split off at any point. Commitment between extra marital partners is hardly found because they have separate family union and responsibilities. They can't be as free as teenage lovers since they have to look for children's needs, family affairs etc.

Doubtfulness

Doubts or suspicions often undermine the strong foundation and existence of romance. Therefore it is the fundamental driving force which could cause any strong bond deteriorate in seconds.

Lovers with sound mutual understandings and proper cognition of social reality are not the victims of doubt. Doubts in love cannot be justified. But in some instances they can be justified. Doubts often arise between persons who are not confident and dubious in their relationship.

Unless they come to a negotiation and compromise, the relationship is bound to shatter in no time. A person may have behavioral traits which inevitably produce misunderstandings in the partner and finally the person must mend his ways after the discussion between the two.

Ardent love

Ardent love is hard to distinguish. It is deceitful and has its own fetching and unbridled attributes. Many people fall in love with appearances and beauty. Such love could besiege with anxiety and incessant misery.

The message of ardent, unrequited love is abundantly found in lyrics and music. Some people take the lust or desire as principles of their love and are probably led astray without being able to discover or feel the pulse of love.

St. Valentine

There is a myth in society that February 14, Valentine's day is dedicated for lovers to share their romantic feelings, whimsical cards, fancy gifts, expensive meals and picnics. The celebrations on that day is basically an idea planted by many commercial media and black marketeers.

The concept of celebrating Valentine has become a trend in society and young adolescents have received the message of Valentine as a day that every bachelor or spinster should celebrate Valentine's day with their partner by sharing expensive items in vivid colours, especially designed for Valentine's day.

The origin of the Valentine's day was taken place in Rome in order to commemorate St. Valentine also called as St. Valentinus. St. Valentine was one of the martyrs of ancient Rome who helped lovers to get married.

In order to honour his noble service, the day the saint was martyred was declared a holiday in Rome and lovers from many places gathered around to ritualize the martyrdom of St. Valentine. In ancient Rome it was merely a commemoration but later it spread over the world. The current interpretation of Valentine is an absolute deviation of the rationale of commemorating St. Valentine.

The commercialisation of the commemoration of St. Valentine has imposed upon society many a harmful consequence. Young people are entirely misdirected and enticed by marketing strategies promoted by some money-making institutions to make easy money using the little knowledge among youngsters about the Valentine's day celebrations.

Some media spearheads in organising Valentine's day celebrations around the city conveying the message of the Valentine's day as a compulsory celebration among lovers without which, one can't be a good lover.

There was a heart breaking story of a school girl who wanted to celebrate Valentine's day because of a false message conveyed through some irresponsible media.

The sixteen year old girl had many friends and everyone of them had love affairs while she was left single without a partner. Her friends had gone out with their lovers to celebrate and enjoy the Valentine's day.

This young girl felt sad and reprehensible of not having a partner. What happened ultimately was that she chose a married trishaw driver as her Valentine to spend her day. The medical reports stated that the girl had been raped by the trishaw driver.

Love, youth and spirituality

Reluctantly we have to admit that youth is not in spiritual periphery which immensely help them to uplift the goodness in a romantic relationship. Only a handful of such young people could be found in society who can strain the spirit of virtues, commensurate with their love life.

Many a lover in the contemporary society are driven by the ostentatious proponents which lead them astray or bring detrimental results.

They are not hesitant to spend what ever amount of money in order to buy lovable nothings for their lovers such as flowers, fancy ornaments and so on. They seldom tend to spend the money they earn for a fruitful investment which both the party will be benefited now or later.

The traditional way of celebrating Valentine's Day is by spending a lot of money over many trifle things which will help only black marketeers to uplift their financial status. In the twenty first century, as educated, knowledgeable and civilized generation the youth should know to celebrate Valentine in an innovative and meaningful way without giving much priority to illusive events take place in society.

The learned youth will pause for a moment to ponder an ingenious way of commemorating the martyrdom of St. Valentine without wasting money.

The wisest thing is to invest that money for a beneficial purpose which will really add value to youth.