India is Shining (But not on Valentine’s Day)

India is Shining, but apparently not on St. Valentine’s Day. As I understand the arguments of the keepers of our nation’s conscience, the chief objections against celebrating this day are threefold.

One, it is a celebration of a foreign saint, one who is alien to our shores and our religion. (We have enough saints of our own, and a religion second to none, natively grown and internationally exported, albeit peacefully.)

Two, it commemorates a concept alien to our civilization and our mores, namely, a public declaration of one person’s love for another. (That monumental public declaration of love, the Taj Mahal, is an aberration and the product of another alien religion and civilization, and probably constructed on the ruins of a temple, but that is neither here nor there.)

Three, it propagates a deplorable lack of morality and an alienation of our inherent and intrinsically straight-laced approach to relationships between members of the opposite sex. (All women are our mothers and sisters and all men are our fathers and brothers. Women are addressed in public places by strangers as mother, sister and sister-in-law; while men are addressed as brother or uncle, though surprisingly, almost never as father, except dismissively – “arre mere baap.” Food for a doctoral thesis on linguistics here, but I digress.)

In short, alienism, or the quality of being alien (WordNet, Princeton University), seems to underpin all our objections to the celebration of this day.

I have a solution that should delight our minds and warm the cockles of all our shining hearts. I propose that we drop St. Valentine’s Day from our almanacs and substitute a commemoration of a very Indian, very ancient text.

Let us adopt a Kama Sutra Day.

One, no foreign saints need get involved, much less foreign religions. The Kama Sutra is the proud product of our religion, our civilization, our culture: a religion, civilization and culture that predates the alien ones by several millennia and has stood erect in the face of naked aggression over centuries.

Two, it has very little to do with declarations of love, public or otherwise, and need embarrass none. The Kama Sutra is about making love, not declaring it. The Kama Sutra is all about how to, when to and how often to.

Three, members of the opposite sex can be guiltlessly involved as they are supposed to, namely, in the exchange of bodily fluids. Given the (justified) taboos on incest, this celebration will necessarily exclude our mothers, sisters and sisters-in-law, as also, our brothers, uncles and fathers. All women and men will therefore be protected.

That disposes of the primary objections to the current alien practice (CAP). Of course, it also celebrates an activity that we seem to be rather good at, world leaders in fact. In addition, there are a variety of additional advantages to be gained from a Kama Sutra Day (KSD). The marketing and merchandising opportunities it raises would be guaranteed to invigorate the economy and swell the GDP at least as much if not more than the CAP.

The protection motif can be strengthened by some judicious advertising from those companies that offer protection. Additional how-to and how-not-to manuals can provide a fillip to publishing companies and budding authors. The possibilities in the video and film industry are limited only by one’s imagination. The audio industry can replace its customary “Love Songs” offerings with “Music to KS by” compilations. “Kaanta Laga” (translation: pricked) multi-tracked with “Locomotive Breath” (translation: heavy breathing) springs to mind.

In the interests of public decency, however, we should draw the line at greetings cards, whether paper or electronic. They are open to much abuse.

The scope to export KSD to the rest of the world should be obvious. We have never been proselytizers, but this is one cause that would be worth evangelizing and that would find a ready market across the globe.

I call upon my fellow Indians spread far and wide to rise to the challenge and make Kama Sutra Day a celebration that we can be justifiably proud of.