With the passage of time, love has assumed many a meaning; but its essence has remained the same — pure as snow, chaste as ice
DESPITE the fact that Sigmund Freud may have a different definition of it, ‘love’ is an eternal feeling. It has many faces. It is a process that never dies out and only fades away when one stops thinking. The difficulty with this feeling or sentiment is its mode of expression, that is, how to express it. Ironically, and what makes it more beautiful, is that love doesn’t always require words — sometimes even simple actions and gestures prove sufficient. It is merely a question of proper communication.
Through the ages, various cultures and communities have articulated their own ways to express this fine feeling, no matter if it proved time-consuming. The fact of the matter is that love was there even when human being hadn’t started going through an evolutionary process.
In its long journey and assimilation of various cultures, love found various sources ranging from religious rituals to community traditions. And during this process the essence of love did not only remain intact, but also intensified. Mostly, the feeling of love adhered to its social and living conditions. However, a stronger perception came from religious kind of festivities. These traditions retained the finer feelings of love, but drew a lot from the cultural values of communities. Nonetheless, the religious perception remained stronger than some others.
Historically speaking, the expression of love has too undergone modifications — often under the influence of rulers, and sometimes through interaction with other communities. No doubt, traditional cultures, to a certain extent, kept in touch with their roots, but the fusion had a deep effect, often resulting in cultural invasions.
Ironically, conquests, slavery and colonialism have played a very dirty role in this process. In history, every victor imposed his or her religion, language and cultural values on it, resulting in the disappearance of native faculties from the ‘subjects’, and in every case a new culture, language and religion took root. The examples of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Far East are a testimony to this fact, where religions, languages and all forms of culture have eroded.
The Valentine’s Day is one such festivity which apparently expresses a finer feeling of remembering the loved ones, but also has a historical and religious background that is not too familiar to our culture.
The story dates back to the Roman rule of an erotic festival, named after a saint killed for defying the emperor and allowing young couples to secretly marry. Legend has it that Saint Valentine disobeyed Emperor Claudius II of Rome, who had disallowed all marriages and engagements within the city, because he thought love-struck men were not joining his legions. Finally, Saint Valentine was arrested and sentenced to death (his head was to be severed on Feb 14, 270AD).
It so happened that the fateful day coincided with an erotic festival organized in memory of Juno Februata, the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. The festival was called Lupercalia, attended by all able-bodied men of Rome. The Romans used to place the names of young women in a box which would then be drawn by men seeking a partner for feasting and erotic games.
It is said that the Christians of those days were obstinate and in many cases sought to superimpose Christian festivals on different holidays at the time, terming them indecent. With the passage of time, the festival of Valentine became synonymous with Lupercalia, and then turned into a festival of lovers.
Once it became popular with the early Christians, researchers and theologians began searching who St Valentine was. History books on the church tell us about three Valentines who were killed in their respective times. However, no concrete finding has been universally accepted, except for the one who was killed by the emperor of Rome on Feb 14, 270AD. And many miracles are associated with him.
Whatever the case be, the fact is that wherever the English set their feet, they always eyed natural and human resources of that land, finally capturing country after country, extending the empire to almost all parts of the world. They made calculated moves and from the 11th century they began occupying and exploiting the resources of these territories to which they had no right. They uprooted people from their homelands, made them slaves to work without wages, converted them to their religion, imposed their own language and introduced their own culture. In regions where the English faced resistance, they resorted to coercive methods.
Culture became the worst victim of these atrocities. Africans, Latin Americans, Aborigines, South-East Asians and Micronesians were forced to adopt the culture of invaders. Even the people of the subcontinent had to give in, but here their strong roots in religion and firm bondage with an enlarged family system, prevented most cultural avalanches triggered by the English. Here the cultural values emanating from the socio-economic conditions, religious disciplines, ethics and cults stopped any quick advance of the alien rulers’ culture. While the culture of various communities slowly accepted foreign influence, most of the subcontinent’s population did not lose its attachment to its roots and values. Independence brought a radical change to the whole perception, and the growing economic conditions modified the different customs. On the one hand, celebrations like Basant acquired new popularity, on the other hand, the revelry associated with the Valentine Day’s found a place with the non-Christians. In no way is it an unlikable festivity; but in recent years a new element has added unpleasantness to it, which sometimes tantamount to vulgarity. The texts on the printed cards and the models of gifts speak against tenderness of love — the central theme of the occasion. Sometimes, such text is so unethical that it becomes difficult to be read by any other family member of the person who has either written it or received it. The unfortunate reality is that the trend is on the rise giving birth to a string of wrongdoings without being aware of their affects on our cultural values. There is nothing wrong in adopting a joyful custom of any community, but the way with which the fever has gripped our society is rather surprising.
With the passage of time, love has assumed many a meaning; but its essence has remained the same — pure as snow, chaste as ice 
