The Desicritics Valentine's Day Contest - Celebrating Love

Incidentally, select the subCategory "Culture:Valentine" to mark an article as part of this contest when posting.

Good luck, all, and let your imagination run wild!

In case you need help with registering an author, post to this thread

Wicked!!

I think I shall go down the photo essay route. I think.

Awesome! Bring it on girl!:)

"Never has Valentine's Day been as important to us Indians as when we were told love was a Western imposition."

Can you please enlighten us on which conservative brother told you love was a western imposition? Or did all of them tell you that?

"...the spirit of St. Valentine who gave his life to protect the right to love."

Protect the right to love????????? Liberals are so good at making everything an issue of rights!

Wikipedia says:

"Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

An alternative theory from Belarus states that the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering. "

Could you please post the version of Valentine's day story which talks about a saint giving up his life to protect the right to love?

As with most legends, there are varying versions - we prefer to believe in the version about the power of love to melt even the hardest heart, perhaps you could do with some yourself, Gandhi-giri style. Here's a version from a source somewhat more reliable than wikipedia:

It is believed that the young priest rose to distinction after betraying Emperor Claudius in 270 AD by conducting illegitimate wedding ceremonies in the capital. Emperor Claudius claimed that married men made poor soldiers and consequently decreed that all marriages of younger citizens would be outlawed. Bishop Valentine, however, maintained that marriage was part of God's plan and purpose for the world. He continued to conduct marriages in secret between young people, sometimes as young as twelve, in the name of love

Anon

We have largest number of people being able to build and sustain nuclear and extended families. We have largest number of people being able to sustain marriages that last a life time. We have largest number of people being able to form instant and enduring relationships and friendships and communities out of strangers. None of all that is possible without the glue of love and compassion.

People do not like to subject such a vital social force to tokenism or reductionism. People do not like to turn it into once-a-year tokenism.

We know what mother's day and father's day has done to families - it has orphaned mothers and fathers for remainder of 365 days for a token recognition on 1 day a year. If you really love your mom, than every day should be your mother's day and you should celebrate your love for your mom whenever it means the most to you and your mom, not when somebody tells you to celebrate it. You do not need permission from somebody else to love your mom or reserve a day for it as dictated by somebody else.

We didn't get to be billion plus without love and sex. We don't need anglophiles teach us how to love and how to celebrate love. If Indians are apprehensive of this whole media-sponsored fad, it is because people see thru its patronizing attitude, cynical inferiority complex about Indian culture, slavish mentality.

Love and sex belong in private domain, within personal relationships, and they have to be celebrated privately, everyday, and nobody should dictate how and when - its celebrations should be entirely personal. But when you can't create national festivals, commercial exhibitionism and public orgies out of them - people would naturally object to it.

'We'? I thought you are an American and not an Indian. Make up your mind Mr Kerty. If your heart so throbs for Ram Rajya book your return tickets and join the Bajrang Dal, RSS, VHP or whichever thug oriented moral policing outfit you want to.

And people like me will look forward to fighting with people like you face to face. Come na? You are nothing more than a double faced individual. Where is your sense of loyalty?

Come back Kerty. Leave it all and devote your life to the cause.

Pompous speeches are dime a dozen so is throwing money on causes. Come and live what you believe.

"It is believed that the young priest rose to distinction after betraying Emperor Claudius in 270 AD by conducting illegitimate wedding ceremonies in the capital. Emperor Claudius claimed that married men made poor soldiers and consequently decreed that all marriages of younger citizens would be outlawed."

Looks like this is more about protecting the right to wed.

"Bishop Valentine, however, maintained that marriage was part of God's plan and purpose for the world."

God's plan!!! Nice! I buy it because Valentine says so.

"He continued to conduct marriages in secret between young people, sometimes as young as twelve, in the name of love."

Child marriage???

Child marriage was unfortunately the norm across the globe (including India), partly due to short life spans - they married young and died young.

"Child marriage was unfortunately the norm across the globe (including India), partly due to short life spans - they married young and died young."

I did not know this. It's good to know that India is not the only country that had this so-called "evil practice" as we are made to believe.

[EDITED - COPY PASTE LINKS - WRITE YOUR OWN ARTICLE IF YOU NEED TO MAKE A POINT]

[EDITED - COPY PASTE LINKS]

[EDITED - COPY PASTE LINKS, STOP HIGHJACKING THREADS, WRITE YOUR OWN]

I was trying to provide Islamic and xian perspective on st. valentine and this festival in response to #6 & #7.

Write an article then - it is an interesting perspective

[EDITED - PASTE-JACKING, YOU'RE WELCOME TO WRITE AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

Come on kerty, write that article will ya?

And I have to agree with Anandiya
"Pompous speeches are dime a dozen so is throwing money on causes. Come and live what you believe."

I was surprised to learn you live in America. You should come back and walk the talk kerty...

Other than that Ms. Lincoln, how were the comments.

Great contest idea - love is a celebration of instinct, mystery as defined by each one of us.

Saying that, someone write a post called "K.I.S.S. and Make-Up" please, I've had that title in my headline for awhile.

Hopefully we have such theme based contests for other days as well....

Sure, Chandra, for now, looking forward to your entries.

Folks, please remember to select Culture:Valentine as a subcategory when posting under this theme.

[SPAM]

[blathering]

My opinion on Valentines has been well defined in the argument below::

[JACK-PASTING]

Aaman,

I thought I got away from all this trash about St. Valentines when I moved from the States to Israel.
Nope! So such luck. In the Jerusalem Central Bus Station the hucksters are pushing candy to celebrate "Love Day" (in Jerusalem it's bad manners to celebrate a Christian "saint" or the pagan god he is based on). In Tel Aviv, where they have neither manners nor brains, they talk openly about St. Valentine's Day, and a bunch of idiots who claim to have met extra-terrestrials who were supposed to have created mankind, tried a mass orgasm-in to seek world peace. According to the Jerusalem Post, it was a pretty limp event. Since you are kicking out links from comments as well as copying and pasting (is this a new wrinkle on the comments policy?), I'll eschew the practice here.

How much in shekels (or dollars) is RS 1,000 anyway? And more to the point, what does a good new book run for anyway at a good quality bookstore out where you are?

Reuven,

We can transmit the equivalent in any currency you prefer; in USD, it's about $20-$25, that would buy about 2 books in our nearby store, but then again, that depends on your literary tastes:)

it's about $20-$25, that would buy about 2 books in our nearby store

It appears that books are cheaper in India than they are here. Of course the plane fare sort of cancels the discount....

any updates on who won (assuming there was any competition at all)?

or was this whole thing consigned to the dustbin?

Forget about the winning, but where is the link to the one page where all the V-Day articles are available?

Results coming up in a few. All the articles will also be listed there, and are available here

I'm hoping DC will announce a similar Dandiya Raas and Dang Lila contest during the Navratris.

"We'? I thought you are an American and not an Indian. Make up your mind Mr Kerty. If your heart so throbs for Ram Rajya book your return tickets and join the Bajrang Dal, RSS, VHP or whichever thug oriented moral policing outfit you want to."
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And this is a perfect example of the binary thinking which afflicts and degrades the debate in Indian society, along the same lines as Bush's famous statement - "You're either with us or you're against us."