What the F***?

For the past few days in various news channels every 2 hours debates, discussions, stories about whether Valentines Day should be celebrated or if it’s against Indian culture. Various groups getting hold of various arms to suppress people celebrating Valentines Day. Women getting hold of kitchen utensils, men deciding to proclaim people as husband and wife, people enacting what will happen if Valentines Day is celebrated. On the other hand you have the pro Valentines Day group. They also have come up with various innovative ways to tackle this issue. For a developing country with too many problems to count, aren’t we spending too much of our time and other resources on such a ridiculous problem? To celebrate Valentines Day or not? Is that even a real problem 

The turn of events is absolutely disgusting and appalling. Why on earth is any “sena” spending this much effort to tackle the “problem” of Valentines Day? Various sections of society across religions and castes are marginalized in India, why can’t these religious fanatics champion their cause? Farmers take their life because they don’t have money to buy the food that they produce and all we get to see is a documentary once in a blue moon. Ridiculously high numbers of children are not getting elementary education and no one give a damn. Women get raped, college girls are forced into prostitution because they can’t pay their fees, parents sell off their children so that they and their children can have a meal and do we ever get to see the real depth of the issue? Ridiculously high number of children and elderly sleep without a roof over their head, and scores of them die every year because of extreme cold or heat strokes. Do we give a rat’s ass about them? Family’s die of thirst and hunger because neither water nor food is available to them even though tons of food gets spoiled in various go downs, but why should we care? If we start to write down the problems we as a nation is facing, that list will never get over. 

Celebrating Valentines Day or going to a pub, is that really an issue. We have the Women and Child development minister and the health minister going hammer and tongs on this issue. Agreed, beating up of the women was the job of a few sexual sadists and they should be trashed but why should a minister directly get involved in such incidents? Even though I know the answer is “Politics”, still, it’s appalling. In a country (in general) where women are tortured for not providing dowry, where women cant get out without the fear of getting molested or raped, is it right on the part of the minister to give her complete attention on ensuring that Valentines Day goes on or the working of pubs are not disturbed. I am not saying what she did was wrong, but I am hurt with the kind of emphasis that this issue got. If such hype was there around various other issues we would have been a developed country 10 yeas ago. 

It’s not just about the people who support Valentines Day. Don’t the so called “protectors of Indian culture” have anything better to do?  Is Valentines Day or Pubs the major cultural problem that we are facing? I agree, it’s important to protect Indian culture and heritage, but having agitations for such petty things is nothing less than school boyish. Throw stones at the government for the status of the holy ganga or the appalling condition of the various temples in our country. Of all the things Valentines Day? I don’t   care if its politics or anything else, its simply ridiculous.

To ensure that such things don’t happen, I guess we should be the change that we want to see. This much hype for such an issue is not justified, at least in my humble opinion. It’s high time that we as a nation set our priorities right. Issues like poverty, hunger, exploitation, death might not be as fancy as celebrating Valentines Day or going to pubs but its high time that the former issues get hyped more.