Love Is In The Air ???

I have been hearing this all through yesterday that 'love is in the air' ..... but I don't see where. When I switched on the tv and browsed through a couple of news channel, all I gathered was that there was violence and serious national issues being discussed.

There was this discussion about security issue after the verdict was out on the 'Kandhar flight hijack' and the central government planning on some anti-hijack laws. Then, there was this news about Shiv-Sena playing spoil-sport again in Mumbai and small pockets of Maharashtra where they staged protests against Valentine's Day, calling it influence of western culture and erosion of indian ethos. And there was this raging debate about 'localites' versus 'outsiders'; another narrow-minded approach to weaken the fabric of our society. And hordes of north-indians fleeing from Nasik and other cities, in search of safety and protection. Talk about love, people are busy spreading hatred !!!

I had enough of news, so I changed my mind and tuned to some music channels. Well, things got worse. There was a mad-mad competition among fmcg products trying to push/force/shove/coerce love into the air. There were ads, one after another, forcing people to fall in love. It was actually the naked face of commodification of love; where the ads were trying to sell dreams, aspirations, holiday destinations, romantic moments, love .... and countless other intangibles. The channel aired almost everything except songs, forget love songs.

Then I moved onto sports channels and the daily soap operas, but they could not even hold my interest for 10 minutes. So, I turned on the radio and tuned to a couple of fm stations and I was in for some mushy crap. There were listeners clamouring to call up the radio station and narrate their love stories, about how they had met, how they proposed, how they got rejected/disposed etc etc. After a while it got boring as I could easily guess what the next caller was about to say.

Anyways, after I was done with the electronic media I moved onto the print media. I read some business news, about appreciating rupee against dollar, merger and de-merger of firms, fluctuating sensex, yahoo rejecting microsoft's bid etc. It was all very good, until I opened the tabloids and turned to page-3 articles and the entertainment news. I was in for some more mushy stuff. The pages were filled with columns on how to celebrate v-day, what gifts to buy, how to propose, how to handle rejection etc etc.

For a moment I felt that a hype was being built-up around valentine's day. After all, it was just another day of the year; and I still felt the same way about my near and dear ones. Neither had the magnitude of my love increased nor decreased, it was the same amount as it is on any other day. I stepped out of my room and walked into the balcony, took a deep breath. I almost choked. I looked up and saw huge clouds of dust; the air was filled with smoke, saw-dust, pollen, sand. cement particles........anything but love.

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