I began seeing this cardioid a few days ago; a big, plastic gelatin shape of geometry fluttering in the air, right opposite the two monumental swords of the city. A cardioid, I hear invisible voices asking? For the sake of honest disclosure, allow me to confess that mathematics and I have a thorny relationship. In anti-Forrest-Gumpian tradition, we have been peas and carrots that never got along. But I know my cardioids, much like Dr. Faustus intimately knew about the world and its treasure trove of knowledge (my comprehension of cardioids probably arriving at the same mortal cost as the respected scholar’s). I even tragically know their parametric equations:

X= a(2cos t – cos 2t) Y= a(2sin t – sin 2t)

If you have already googled cardioid or had the exquisitely nerdy adventure of reaching for a graph paper to plot out a rather blobby shape, you will know that the cardioid is basically just an overweight heart lying on its side, napping as it waits to explode in glorious fervor.

This shape, popularly called the heart seems to pop up like elves in Iceland (true international Colbert ‘myth’) in the month of February. Oh the ubiquity of love, they seem to sing, gallivanting from window-displays to card greetings to the souls of balloons in the hands of young men at traffic lights. The pied piper that is the 14th of February leads these hearts (allow me to state here of course, that despite the fact that there are no verified effects on the seas, the mountains, the moon and the sun - the individual heart is just a pump) through our streets, our air-waves, our lungs and our vision of the world.

So, as I passed this magnificently plastic-jelloed shrine at Doh Talwaar (oh, the sumptuous geographical conjugation of swords and hearts could be a great romantic metaphor of its own) on innocent errands, the great cardioid hung there on a billboard, clinging on to dear raison d’être against the sun, the unusual Karachi cold and vainglory of tempestuous time.

Time.

We have so little, and yet we spend so much of it. The physical, ostentatious cardioids and their buying and selling is something, my rather un-monied, echoing chest might not say much about because it understands that our extravagance and unbridled display of them comes from a deeper place; like a Wonderland rabbit hole of humanity, where Alice is not the only one allowed to fall without crashing.

Everyone has a general notion about time. If Valentine’s day (or a Tuesday as I am calling it this year) is about love, why do we have only one day of it? Shouldn’t we love all year round? Or does having one day make it so much more special? Opinions will use their lances to pierce each other on the issue so I shall not wade into the debate with my wooden bow and arrow. All I ask is that we should all ponder whether the exhibition of our love should be consigned to a day somebody else chose for us.

Why must our Valentine narratives revolve so untiringly around our beloved? Why do we not use love in a broader, less passionate, more humane manner? I may not be a smart man but I know what love is. Gump said that. And I repeated it.

So after you get back from your dinner, your great day out, your planned surprise for the love of your life (totally do the Valentine thing by the way – preferably everyday of the year but definitely this day), take a few minutes to say a few kind words to someone else – your mother, your father, your pesky siblings. But do not stop there. Clichés should have taught us by now that the well of love only grows the more we spread it around (again, opportunists I am talking to you, allow not this to be a justification for sneaky shenanigans).

So be imaginative. Be pleasant to your neighbour. Give a flower to someone old, a friend who has been there for you. Give that guy making the intersection turn a few seconds more, let him pass. Salute a policeman. After all, we’re all deserving of unexpected kindness from time to time. Be generous, smile. Say something nice to a stranger. Say thank you and sorry enough.

Not just on the cardioid festival of the 14th of February but on a Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday. Until you lose count and you end up on a remote day of the week, in some desolate month of the year in the travelling city of your heart, celebrating Love.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.