Valentine's Day - The deadliest occassion invented by Greeting Card companies

Unless you are Rip Van Winkle or our own Kumbhakarna, 14th of Feb is one day that is unlikely to pass by you.

As acknowledged by most people even in western countries, this day is purely the achievement of Greeting Card companies in creating a sense of peer pressure nonpareil.

The earliest recollection I have of this day is in school. Around the 11th or 12th, one of the girls in my class went up to the board and wrote Happy Valentine's Day. Somehow the funda behind the day didn't register in my head that year, but in subsequent ones, it crept in.

In college, around the 4th semester I think, my bench-mates encouraged me to do something on Valentine's day viz. "propose" to a girl that I liked in my class at that time. In spite of their valiant efforts to throw me in the pits, somehow my basic fear overtook all other emotions and I stayed quiet. The only thing that came out of the whole episode was the girl earning the nickname of "14".

The subsequent years in college did see me being motivated by my friends, to approach another girl that I had a massive crush on. Of course, I never did anything like that and ever since, all Valentine's Days have been too darn quiet.

Anyways, what surprises me is that people have rules for the dress color on that day. For those uneducated on that front, here are the rules (email forward from one of my team members):
Ø Blue - I’m free
Ø Green - I’m waiting
Ø Orange - going to propose
Ø Pink - accepted just now!!!
Ø Black - proposal rejected
Ø White - already booked
Ø Yellow - broke up!!!
Ø Gray - not interested…
Ø Red - leave me

Without going much into any logic that was not used in arriving at this color rule, I will be going to office tomorrow dressed in a blue shirt and a dark gray pant. So basically, am indicating that I am free but am not really interested.

I have tried wearing Green on previous Valentine's Days but ain't gonna do that this time. Me wearing that color has not altered the course of history and nor will me stepping out in any other color do anything otherwise.

But I had a small business proposition in mind for tomorrow. Like, opening up a small stall in my food court to sell greeting cards, stuffed toys, heart balloons etc. Basically the things are bought in plenty by kids. There are surely quite a lot of people who would have forgotten to buy stuff, or may be tempted to after seeing it or just be influenced by peer pressure to buy stuff. So a stall that sells these is guaranteed to make a neat profit. Which is the business plan formulated by the consortium of Greeting Card companies in USA, adopted in the 60s-70s, after the Flower Power era.