Valentine’s Day, for long, has been a welcome tradition in the west for expressing one’s love and affection for one’s families, children and friends. While most couples go on dates and spend some romantic time together, children present gifts and cards to their friends and best friends exchange promises to be best friends forever. A global festival, the day allows everyone to show their love and feel loved. Does this sound about right? Well…for those of us here in the west it does.

Valentine’s Day in India, however, like most occasions that are western in origin and have been instilled thanks to the British, retains a stilted message. So strongly are all actions and celebrations dictated by culture and age-old traditions in the country that the day was sliced out of its expansive inclusiveness to remain a celebration in the singular.

For the Indian Valentine’s Day believes in symbolizing love for one’s beloved in the strictest definition possible. Exclusionary in its extent, the day is defined to express one’s love for spouse, fiancée, girlfriend/boyfriend or simply lover. Unlike the American tradition, the day is not extended to parents, classmates, friends, co-workers, bosses and kids. As a result, Hallmark India markets young love, red roses, kisses, heart-shaped balloons and candlelight dinners just the same as American Hallmark but only in the context of romantic love.

Despite having managed to carve out the acceptable portion for itself to celebrate, India’s generations are fast changing hands and as the nation progresses economically and educationally, its societal norms are beginning to be questioned. As more and more generations accept the Valentine’s Day as simply another reason to express their love to a special someone, the many religious groups and political sects that populate the country mark the day with protests and vicious marches.

The most prominent one, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), literally translated as the National Volunteer’s Organization, marks the day with violent displays, marches and even punishment inflicted upon couples displaying any element of affection in public. Forget kissing, they have been known to create uproar at the sighting of even an embrace. Considered extremist in their philosophy, originating from one of the country’s two major political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or the Indian People’s Party, the sect assumes it as its responsibility to make sure love remains in the private domain. Exhibitionists are not welcome.

While their open displays of violence makes it dangerous for most to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the major cities of the country, the occasion remains unknown in the rural parts. Partly due to the rarity of access to such information, but mainly due to the influence groups like the RSS have in these areas, February 14^th passes as any other day in the year. Educationally impoverished and strongly conservative, the villages of India are battling the dichotomy of economic prosperity and the widening gap between the classes. Occasions like these then become unimportant and more cause for unintended confusion.

At the same time, Valentine’s Day remains by far the only day that manages to equally rile religious groups and young adults who want to feel empowered with the freedom of expression. Other occasions like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, by some ironic consequence, are celebrated low-key and marginally, even in the most liberal parts of India where information is more freely available and freedom of expression widely accepted.

In the background of these western celebrations, it is only fair then to dissect the two holidays that are indegenous to India and note that they remain, as all things Indian, rooted in tradition and culture. Children’s Day, an occasion to celebrate the birthday of India’s first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is a favorite time on all school kids’ calendar. It is marked to celebrate his love for the youth of India, and schools all across the nation endorse it happily. Corresponding to Children’s Day is Teacher’s Day, also celebrated in remembrance of a prominent political figure in the nation’s history. It is the birthday of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the second president of India and is a day for the students to show their appreciation for their teachers.

Two festive occasions both symbolizing appreciation--low-key, full of joy and cultural in origin. It still remains to be seen, though, how India will reconcile outside cultural influences with its native one while it undergoes its current progression from a third-world country to a probable superpower/ Will RSS continue to besiege Indian culture with its extremist views, or will the new generation(s) be able to harmonize the nation’s innocence and cultural conservativeness with the liberal mind that comes so attached with modernity? Will love remain a strictly private affair?

Next: Today’s consumer choice in India: Wal-Mart, the Indian-version Dollar store, and the emergence of multi-level shopping malls.