History of Valentine day

Today I am going to write history of Valentine day. The history of Valentine day is changing very fast. I will document how it has changed over time.

First time I heard about Valentine Day was in 1995. It was time when Valentine day was promoted on large scale in India. TV shows and newspapers were promoting Valentine Day. Times of India published a special supplement of 50 pages to print message of lovers free of cost. That time TV shows and newspaper were saying that history behind valentine day is that once upon a time there was a princess who loved a prince and she was not able to tell him. She told it to her servant Valentine and he suggested her to make a nice card for the prince and write her message in that card. The princess made a card for prince and gave it to him on 14th February. From that date culture of Valentine day started and this day was named after the servant who gave brilliant idea of card.

In 2005 the idea of Saint Valentine was born. The new story says that there was a Christian saint called Valentine and he invented marriage of a man and woman and this day is named after that great saint. Till 2010 wikipedia was saying that there was no historical person called saint Valentine but now in 2016 wikipedia also says that there was saint Valentine and he invented marriage of man and women and this concept was later on adopted by all other civilizations. It looks like that man didn't used to get married to woman. Looks improbable to me because as per my knowledge, in India man used to get married to a women from time immemorial.

Now a day (in 2016) Valentine Day is a big celebration. Boys and girls give card to each other on 14th February.They go out to restaurants and pubs after that drink and dine and do all sorts of immoral things on this day.  This love last till breakup day celebrated on 21st February. On 21st February these new love birds tell each other that it is not working out and start searching for another person. Why this celebration for a love which last only for 7 days?

In India we believe in life long relationship. Not only life long, but a seven life relationship. Love is a commitment for a life time which needs to be honored for whole life. It should not be like you fall in love for most beautiful boy or girl and whenever you see a more beautiful girl or boy you ditch your previous lover and fall in love with a new person. This materialistic attitude can't build a happy society. There are many ups and downs in life of a person. Health, beauty and wealth of a person do not remain constant for whole life. In India if a person loses his health or wealth than his/her partner supports him and not ditch him and find another partner to satisfy their physical need. This kind of culture has led to many suicides and people getting in depression in western countries. Once a person loses his job he loses his wife also. He is left alone without money and family and in this situation many persons commit suicide.

We are emulating west without realizing what we are losing. We don't see the problem west is facing. In west people are talking about loss of family values, every second person is divorced there. If a person fall sick then nobody takes care of him. In India we take care of our parents, husband, wife and children. We need to make sacrifice of our pleasure for that but in return we get an insurance that my family will take care of me if I lose my health and wealth. I don't want materialistic culture of west destroying social values of Indian culture. It takes thousands of years to build a culture of helping each other. It can get destroyed in 10 years or so but can't be restored back in 10 years. It will take thousands of years. It is better to be safe than sorry.