by JayasankaranKK
The problem with retirement is that you often wake up without the foggiest about the time, the day, or the date.
The year, you ask? C’mon. I’m not that spaced out. Anyone will tell you it’s 2024. Or is it 2025?
So I asked Siri and it obliged modestly, as is its wont. “It’s Friday, February the 14th,” it replied, careful not to sound too triumphant. It was a modest creature.
That was all I needed. That razor-sharp, A-list marvel of high-octane intelligence that is my brain registered its recognition modestly, and that goes without saying of course: It was Valentine’s Day!
It’s a strange day to celebrate, to be sure. I mean, for people like us Malaysians who’d never heard of it growing up.
I certainly don’t remember thinking, or hearing, about it when I was young. I’m not even sure I remember it from when I was at university. Or perhaps it was my penurious state that prevented me from knowing. It seems that the extent of one’s dalliance with VD – unfortunate nomenclature to be sure – is directly proportional to one’s bank balance.
I got to grips with The Day when I began working for Malaysian Business, a bimonthly business magazine that had its staff desks right next to two women’s magazines that thought The Day had to be extolled as much as, say, nasi lemak, P Ramlee, or penicillin.
The origins of The Day go back to Saint Valentine who was martyred by the Romans around 8 BC: they took a dim view of his preaching of Christ’s teachings in England.
It took a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer to add a romantic element to the day although the poem came out 700 years after the martyrdom of said Valentine. Even so, it was, is and remains a made-in-England tradition.
Trust the Brits to market the Day through their American cousins. Today, there is a movie called Valentine’s Day and Hollywood has made the occasion so desperately relevant that any partner, boyfriend or husband is made to feel like a leper if they forget any of these three things: the day, the chocolate/flowers or the booking of their favourite restaurant.
The day makes you realise what the guy who said “Living is like licking honey off a thorn” meant. Buying flowers and splurging for a dinner usually ends in a pleasurable outcome but it can set you back some ways. Now you know what the poet Ogden Nash intimated when he had this to say about seduction: “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.”
Is there a moral to this tale?
You betcha.
This Valentine’s Day business is nothing more than poppycock, balderdash, and bunkum. We might add humbug with a “bah” prefix to the mix for good measure.
It’s nothing more than a British colonial caper aided and abetted by America’s military-industrial complex to lure the unwary to splurge on flowers, chocolates and expensive dinners for no other reason than an overweening desire to demonstrate a global superiority in marketing.
And what do I plan to do on Valentine’s night?
I might have dinner with Rebecca at this Italian place. It has a good selection of white wines and pasta to die for.
WE