Cover Story

With the month of love, roses and all that is pink and wonderful fast approaching, we decided to take a different turn this year and concentrate on the young group who doesn't always look through candy-coloured glasses.

Cupid chokehold

When did Valentine's Day become such an enormous part of our lives, dominating and interrupting with the norms and regularities? Until the past decade, love was celebrated around the clock and round the year. Now with the fastidious extinction of love, this one day is more a mere remembrance than a celebration. The sickening exaggeration of Valentine's Day threatens to choke the love out of those who are actually in love.

The lack of imagination forces a handful to turn to the old rotten tricks. The absence of creativity and the accepted manuals prompt individuals to conventionalise love. The expected expectations need to be boxed out. The fear creeps in and the societal pressure for the singles is ringing bells on several levels. The merchandising and commercialisation of love has taken out the essence of intimacy. Why does it have to all be clothed in hyperbole and stripped out of its innocence? The fixation with taking Valentine's Day to an entire superfluous and superficial level is utterly unnecessary.

Paradigm Shift

They say marriage is the beginning of a whole new chapter in one's life. Particularly in a society similar to ours, the term inhabits a sacred place for most and is considered the ultimate rite of passage. Be that as it may, for some, marriage does not necessarily signify all that it's hyped up to be. In fact, with the inhabitants of the modern world turning more and more independent, marriage, day by day, seems to be losing its promise of a bond that lasts forever. Of course, the fault does not necessarily fall on the concept of marriage itself, but more on the drastic change in the minds of people today.

People today are more mentally affiliated towards regarding their freedom and independence with the utmost importance. In fact, when it comes to these two factors, most are disinclined to make any compromises.
Young people today, or people in general, are slightly less keen on the whole concept that is marriage. From a very young age, children today are pushed to be the best at everything, and as they grow older, this 'go-getter' attitude moulds youngsters towards being less prone to compromise and sacrifice. This 'mould', or comfortable zone is something that most are unwilling to give up and even while they are not completely against the idea of marriage and finding someone suitable to settle down with eventually, the 'liberty' that they have become so accustomed to, gives birth to a sort of internal conflict. There is this 'fear' of allowing a new person to enter the life that has previously been accustomed to not having to answer to anyone. And because 'proper' age is an important prerequisite to marriage for both men and women in this part of the world, and as they take longer to decide, they often surpass that 'limit' and so the conflict continues.