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"Plans?? for tonight?? are you mad!! no plans for valentine's... it just a usual day" shrieked a colleague when I asked her about plans for the love day; "Valentine's day, eeks!! I don't do all of that. No such day for me, I'm going out for dinner with my parents" informed another co worker when I asked her the same question. "Happy gay day Arjun... why are such days so publicized... sigh" messaged a friend from back home, while another one texted "CP was filled with red balloons today!!! This is going to be such a horrendous day".

Besides removing the plenty curse words my female friends were very lenient in using to express their feelings, nothing from the above quotes has been fabricated; my parents have suddenly started following my blog and so I'm trying really hard to keep it as clean as possible... I want them to think that I'm still the kid whose mom never allowed him to read Sidney Sheldon books.

I love women. I am sure God created them amidst a lot pomp and grandeur (probably his team was winning the World Cup back then), cause he sure knew what he was doing. From the wondrous miracle of birth to the infinite amount of care and affection they can offer... the ability to look good in everything from lingerie to bikinis and even our clothes for that matter, they pretty much kick our asses in everything that one can possibly think of. Without them being around, we would all have been a bunch of naked baboon like men jumping around with no sense of ideation.

Some of the good looking ones might sure be prude airheads; some might be slightly less intellectual than the others and while most of them are bad drivers, they still have abilities that probably stretch far beyond the masculine level of comprehension. Like the ability to understand and mold themselves in whatever situations arise. Like my four very intelligent and understanding friends who I mentioned in the first paragraph. On one day when they can expect things without having to use their various weapons of emotional blackmail, they know its better to put on a mask of denial and vehemently hate the day knowing that they are after all in the company of men like many of us.

Normally I would have refrained from writing a post about Valentine's day. Having my own arsenal of defense mechanisms, like last year's post on Lust day (read here), I would have preferred to plagiarise another anti-valentine's article and have fun mocking at the comments, but this year, after witnessing the animosity people (mostly women) had against the love day, I couldn't resist.

The fear I had when I initially thought off this post was off being mistaken as a crusader of love, a wannabe cupid, a blind moronic love fanatic and a hopeless romantic. Besides the last one, neither of the previous ones are true. I'm neither an incarnation of St. Valentine nor am I a nincompoop who believes that 'love conquers all'. I'm just a fan of the V day; a fan most of whose partners have entered post today in the yester years and have never lasted the distance till the next year.

Like many of those who clichéd reply is that everyday is Valentine's day for us, I do fall in the same category. So to all those of my kin who believe that it might be too much to handle for their fragile egos to do something extra on this day and to those of the fairer sex, who prefer reminding themselves a thousand times over about how lame the day really is, please stop. Affection sure doesn't need one specific day to be frolicked about, but it doesn't even harm anyone to spend an extra buck on those over priced roses and/or chocolates. It might just help you ease out an ongoing altercation or even have an upper hand in a near future one. Besides, the resultant pleasure will definitely go beyond the gratification you get from one your 18/21+ websites ;).

I love women. Besides the few exs for whom a tit bit of disdain still remains, I think all of them are near perfect and almost Utopian. My mom, who has helped me achieve this level love and respect (and also the hopeless romanticism) for women and who also happens to have been my Valentine for the last 21 years, is my perfect example of this flawlessness.

One special day for love may not really be appropriate when the entire year is there to do so, but I still can't help but quote (again with the fear of being perceived as a love crusader) from this movie I recently saw, Happythankyoumoreplease (yes, its one word without spaces... its the guy who plays Ted in How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor's directorial debut and is a good watch). Go get yourself loved... its not such a bad feeling after all.

do dooni chaar

I heard someone saying awhile back that absolute poverty is better than relative poverty. For the benefit of those with a non-economic background and/or lack of basic common sense, absolute poverty means not being able to afford a certain basic minimum standard of living, while relative poverty means being less rich in comparison with someone else. In simple terms, if you are spending your days on the road hunting for free food and shelter (and obviously not reading this blog) then you fall under absolute poverty and if you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a silver plate under your ass, while someone else is born with a golden spoon and a golden plate under his ass, then you're relatively poor to him/her i.e. relative poverty.

Even though it is not alien technology, I did spend 3 years of college studying Economics and not completely spending time chasing after the fairer sex, as many would think; I do know my economics definitions.

Coming back to the 2 mentioned terms, no sooner did the uttered statement hit my ear drums than the economics loving machinery in my head went on trials to test the validity of the statement. Briefly, the conclusion printed itself out and I realized that this it was probably the simplest yet the wittiest of economic theories I had come across.

The funny thing about money is that you never know how poor you are till you start earning. This being primarily because when you reach the stage when your bank account and what goes into it is more important than your hairdo and what colored jeans you're wearing, you also reach the stage when the priority status of your bank account and the brand of your jeans become equally important. With earnings, however marginal they might be come along expenses.

Having recently entered into this earning-spending stage, I realized it was easier to start looking at Wonder Woman for assets other than just her Golden Lasso than it is when the prize tag attached to that lasso and other things alike becomes visible.

Desires, wants and needs, all have a bar-code sticker attached to it. Though I would love to believe that the later one realizes this the better it is, it will be a distant pipe dream to do so. Like puberty, this also hits when you is not fully equipped. Besides the instilled feeling of pride of making it out completely on your own, versus the sting of breaking even in the bank account initially month after month, the proud feeling for most of us fortunate ones still overcomes the latter.

One can be a timid sheep against the mighty shepherd economy and run on the principle of 'though shall not want'; but as the sun sets, though shall still need and that can nobody run away from. Being a few steps ahead of the threshold of this stage, my ill-experienced foresight suggests that the only formula which would work is to make sure that this doesn't become a vicious systemic cycle. Thus giving a shut-eye to the means and earning a quick rupee here or there doesn't seem that bad an idea for now.

The only flipside to those certain days when I sit and scan the partially sorry state of my bank accounts is that at least now I know why on those certain evenings dad was unusually grumpy after checking his daily stack of mails; a stack which was mostly filled with payment notifications from various utility providers or how we know them as bills. After having my gears grinded by these similar bill days, I know now why even awesome exam results and successfully masqueraded study hours didn't go too far in getting his jolly self back.

Just like any other social or interpersonal aspect of life, one is in the strongest suite when he/she has nothing to lose. Simply taking it ahead from there, provided that you can charm yourself into getting a free meal twice daily as well as some shelter and clothes, being absolutely poor and having nothing to lose sounds much better than being relatively poor.