By Shamala Suresh Kee

Sweet roses, now you would cost more, chocolates so would you. How far some would go to declare their love to their amour? Make girls dream for their knights in shining armor, to come and swoop them up on their horses (a kancil would be sufficient, though) and ride (or drive) away to sunset. That’s a cliché already, but then I wouldn’t mind being pampered that way on my Valentine. ‘Make me smile and laugh, encompass me with romance and love’. However, celebrating Valentine’s would be the very last thing on some people’s mind. Homeless people, beggars on the street, famish and poverty hanging over their heads, not unlike rain clouds.

While, some might be complaining on their single status, rather, I wish they would be counting their blessings, what they have in their ‘miserable’ lives. A bed to sleep on, a plate of food to fill and a glass of water to drink. Just like in Dicken’s Christmas Carol, Scrooge was shown, what is the true meaning of happiness. How people rejoice the passing of bad spirits, how they hold on to good ones. Nobody would want his or her departure from this world to be a joyful one to others. But, then, that is for Christmas. How do we explain Valentine?

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sonnet 18

Of course, Shakespeare is the master of love, master of tragedies. The everlasting, infamous play, Romeo and Juliet should ring a bell. I wish their love story had not been that tragic.

Background time. Valentine dates back to Roman era, when Claudius II was in reign. Believing that families and love make the soldiers unscrupulous in their obligation, he made a law, forbidding and canceling marriage. However, St. Valentine, and his friend Saint Marius, secretly wed couples, causing him to be banished to the dungeon by Claudius II. There, it was said he fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and left her a love note, signing it off as ‘From Your Valentine”. That started this tradition of declaring love on this particular date, named after St. Valentine.

However, I doubt St. Valentine was ever the chubby toddler who comes with bow and arrows, waiting to inflict love upon unsuspecting young people, as so commercialized by greeting card makers and artists.

Heck, the art of composing love words is so ancient that it is as almost re-living traditions and rituals that are followed so obediently by young lovers in early courtship days. Well, I do know some people who would snub this ‘hopelessly pathetic way of expressing love’, it is so beyond them. But, I wonder, can the magic be killed by extreme-practicalist? Yes! To these people, let down your guards. A little bit of mashy- mushy wouldn’t hurt (hehehe).

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Editor’s Note: What would Pak Lah give Mak Lah this year? Do you think Mak Lah would have received anything last year? Pak Lah denied on March 6 last year that he was going to re-marry what…