Valentine’s Day, the official day of lovers, causes nationwide anxiety. In some States, it is banned. In others, it is discouraged. Young couples are warned, parks are patrolled and love is advised to stay indoors or better yet, wait until marriage.
Florists, however, have no such moral dilemma. For them, Valentine’s Day is the IPL of romance. On that day, a rose that normally costs Rs. 10 suddenly costs Rs. 50. And people in love happily pay, because nothing says ‘I love you’ like an overpriced rose.
To extend the celebration and the billing, florists invent an entire week: Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day. By February 14, couples are emotionally fulfilled and financially exhausted.
The balloons deflate, the chocolates disappear and the roses wither. But what about love?
We use ‘I love you’ as casually as a WhatsApp forward, without stopping to ask what love actually means. Is it available at a premium on Valentine’s Day and discounted for the rest of the year? We are told love must be forever. Because if it isn’t forever, then clearly it was never love. Yet love, like everything else in life, comes with conditions written in fine print.
In India, only married couples are officially allowed to love. Unmarried adults falling in love is suspicious. And people of the same gender falling in love is outrageous. Someone must alert the moral police.
Interestingly, the moral police is always vigilant, always alert, always ready to protect Indian culture from the shocking sight of two consenting adults sitting on the same park bench. Hand-holding is a crime. Kissing in public is cultural terrorism. What about public urination? Just ignore it.
The logical culmination of love is marriage. I had an arranged marriage, like most people of my generation. A few days after our wedding, a Swiss couple we met, asked us the obvious question: “So… how did you two meet?”
“We had an arranged marriage,” we replied.
“My parents replied to the ad given by his parents,” I added.
They looked at us as if we had said, “We met through a government tender.” But in India, that is romance, with proper documentation. Nearly 90% of marriages here are arranged and 90% are successful. At least statistically. After all, if a husband and wife live in the same house and attend weddings and funerals together, the marriage is considered a success. What happens inside the home is nobody’s business.
These days, arranged marriages come with a trial version. The boy and girl meet (under supervision), talk (carefully) and decide whether they can tolerate each other for the next 40-50 years. Which raises an awkward question: where exactly should they meet? In the living room, with parents pretending not to listen? In a café, risking arrest? In a park, under the watchful eyes of culture-protectors? In a hotel? Definitely not.
So the best solution is blind marriage. We joke that love is blind, but apparently, marriage must be legally blind, socially deaf and emotionally muted. Meanwhile, our TV screens overflow with vulgarity. Explicit content is ‘cool.’ Cuss words are fashionable. If you don’t use them, you’re an ‘old aunty.’ All that doesn’t corrupt culture. What truly threatens society is the sight of a man and a woman holding hands in public.
So this Valentine’s Day, whether you celebrate it or oppose it, do buy a rose. Not necessarily to express love, but to support your local florist. Roses may fade and Valentine’s Day may pass, but our hypocrisy? That’s forever, just like love.
Happy Valentine’s Day
—Sujata Rajpal, Author and Columnist
This post was published on February 14, 2026 6:05 pm