RiPa, RiKa, Rose; A Pocket Full of Prose

Kabir and his wife, Rishta, moved half a world away from their families, to build a life in a new country. While it came with its challenges, RiKa (their couple name) were glad to have found friends who made them feel a little bit at home in the alien country. Of these friends, their closest friends were Rinkle and Parth (or RiPa, as their couple name went). Having made the move to this new country before RiKa, RiPa were kind and generous with the wisdom they had gained from their experience. They were a guiding light for RiKa to navigate the administration and bureaucracy of the new country, like when they were looking for an apartment or buying a car. RiPa steered an occasional escape from the monotony of life in the new country, like when they took RiKa for skiing and sledging to the mountains. And RiPa planned and orchestrated many celebrations from birthdays to anniversaries which RiKa cherished.

But this is not a story about the good times they shared. This is a story about a dilemma that a single rose presented.

Until recently, the fourteenth day of the second month each year presented an opportunity to declare one’s love. While traditionally, in a religion that’s alien to many, the day was marked to honour martyrs named Valentine, over time it became a cultural and commercial celebration of love across a large part of the world and was popularised as Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day presented a chance for the young and adolescent to find the courage to proclaim their love. While noble, because courage is hardly an easy to find commodity, the day became quite problematic as well when it descended into an anxiety fuelling tradition. With pimples bursting out as if to protest against their childlike tenderness and to stake a claim on their adulthood, these non-children, not-yet-adults often found themselves feeling the pressure to find a partner for the day. A stigma came to be associated with being single on the day that stealthily, and unfortunately, seeped into the society. Customs of counter-celebrating the day as singles sprung up in some pockets, but could do little to withstand the relentless waves of the majority opinion.

I used to wonder back then, how did the Valentines felt about their legacy of dying for a cause ending up this way. Did they turn in their graves?

Thankfully, the day had been partially reappropriated by many to celebrate other bonds as well. In a popular sitcom of its time, Parks and Recreation, the day was the opportunity for the show’s lead to spend the day with her mother — which invariably presented several situations for extracting comedy. The day was rechristened as Galentine’s day by the show and became popular enough to seep into the daily lives of women in several parts of the world. But it did leave the other half of the world behind as they continued to struggle with the anxiety that the day brought on.

An almost non-negotiable part of the custom is the giving of a rose.

With that historical context, let’s get back to our story.

Rishta was planning to visit Rinkle on the fated day. As things stood, Rinkle got a rose to celebrate her friendship with Rishta — a Galentine’s day thing. However, plans often get modified in the course of life and Kabir ended up meeting Rishta for a drink after their workday. Quite spontaneously, they decided to visit RiPa together. They informed RiPa about the slight change in plan, but with a very short notice.

With the Galentine’s day plan jeopardised, the single rose suddenly seemed insufficient. A simple solution then became to get another rose for Kabir too. That, RiPa thought, would solve the problem. They tried, but failed, to procure a second rose given the last-minute panic purchases of roses by anxious people that starts on the evening of Valentine’s Day each year.

Worried that the single rose could become a source of tension, perhaps a minor one but a tension nevertheless, RiPa wondered what were the options available to them. And that’s when they created a new celebration of this old tradition. They created, what they henceforth referred to as the Palentine’s Day: a day for pals.

Since that day in 2023, men, women and non-binary friends get together each year on the evening of the fourteenth day of the second month to break bread together and celebrate their bond of friendship.

The martyrs named Valentine, I am assured, were once again resting peacefully. Their legacy was no longer abused and was no more a source of distress. There’s hardly a greater cause than true friendship which offers both a refuge against the pushes and pulls of the world we live in and is a joy fuelling, energising union — the antithesis of human anxiety.