Valentine’s Day and Vasant Panchami are celebrated with love. A playful exploration by Mamta, exclusively for Different Truths, explores Kamadeva and Shringara, highlighting the vibrant colours of love.

Love is in the air!
Every day of Valentine’s Week is dedicated to love.
Love is in love with the idea of love.

Roses, chocolates, teddy bears, and enlarged hearts embellished with lace are selling briskly. You have it if you are not gifting anything to your boyfriend or girlfriend. What kind of savage are you if you do not buy a gift to value your loved one? The more exponential the tag, the sleeker the brand, and the more love is supposed to be packed in the hearts of the giver and the receiver. Everyone is loving in the same conformist manner. It appears as if Love is on the assembly line with the same packing, the same shape, and an expiration date.

Valentine’s Day has grabbed the eyeballs of the Indian nation, with a sizeable youthful population. This year it follows closely the footsteps of Vasant, the festival ushering spring; somewhat similar in subliminal stimulus, honouring the love god, Kamadeva, a handsome winged man wielding a bow and love arrows, awakening carnal desire along with his consort, Rati. Shringara is considered an integral flavour (rasa) of this day, witnessing a boom in weddings; an auspicious day for a life swathed in the lustre of love.

The goddess, Saraswati, is worshipped with great fanfare; inside homes at a very personal level, initiating the young to begin learning this day; in educational institutions, venerating the goddess as the fountainhead of learning, wisdom, and music. This festive spirit, which celebrates cerebral, sublime emotions, is less attractive to market forces, but love is a force to reckon with, conquering all.

A decade ago, when Valentine’s Week with Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Promise Day, Kiss Day, and Hug Day were not so popular, how on earth did we live? Was love a part of our lives? Did our hearts beat to the tune of systole and diastole?

Love did not come packaged; it was left to us to explore the many splendours of emotion, savouring its ecstasy without Instagram. There was no shortage of oxytocin. The bliss hormone was longer-lasting and could be felt without tom-tomming over the rooftops. It was felt with intensity in the quiet cadences, which spoke volumes: increasing in strength after weathering storms, experiencing the chill of winter, and cherishing the warm summer day. Love had the constancy of the crimson red sky that remains the same during sunrise and sunset, sans the terror of losing the loved one to a femme fatale.

That the stealthy, creeping years make no difference to love.

That’s my kind of love!

Visuals by Different Truths and picture design by Anumita

Mamta Joshi

Mamta Joshi did her post graduation in History from University of Allahabad. She writes short stories, reflective essays, prose pieces on everyday life in national dailies and international e-magazines. She writes with equal ease in Hindi. For over two decades, as a teacher of English in college section at SMC, Allahabad, she has been interacting with young minds, understanding their pulse and in turn being savvy on technology, fitness, fashion, humour and rumour too.

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