February 14: Happy Kalpana Divas!

I found this Valentine's letter from Pag Anboy to his beloved.

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Be My Valentine by Pag Anboy

My Dear Sweet Love,

I say to thee “Be My Valentine” but thou knowest not how I choke upon it for love.

But a pagan am I, and love cometh easy to me. My pagan ancestors celebrated this day, our day of dance and celebration and spring, before the loving Church came and showed us ours sinful ways. Their god was a loving god, and he would roast us in his loving hell – the Church could only help. But try as it might, for it was a mighty Church, we poor pagans would scarcely leave love. So the Church did the next best thing, when you can't kill them all, join them – and they did join a poor Churchian Saint with a bad Churchian myth to create Valentine's day, all the better to progress the empire. Let us celebrate then with good English postcards.

But I digress. Wouldst thou allow me, my dear, to whisper sweet nothings into thine ear? What, nothings do not thine appetite fill? How about then, this box of Chocolates, the best Swiss ones? Ah! I see I tempt you. And tempted were the Churchians too, by this chocolate, not their own invention of course, but begotten from the savage Indians of the Americas – now all wrapped up for you in this pretty package, nicely civilized. Ah, the civilizing Churchians, what burdens they must have borne to rid us of our sins. And how much work, with their loving ways of course, must they have done to dispatch our savage ancestors for these sinful temptations, to a quick meeting with their pagan fathers, all roasting in hell. One million? Five? Ten? One hundred million!? Ah, but who is counting, some heathens less or more, some Indians less or more, as long as the good Churchian blood is not spilled in vain, for the Churchian way is the way of love. (and the only way, mind you, remind you). Why, thou believest me not? Why woudst thou? For history, they say, is written by the victorious.

Come live with me and buy my love. Let me then give thee mine heart, mine only heart, surely more precious than a mere rib. Thou art blossoming in thy woman hood, and the Church is terribly partial to women. Bear I, to repeat the Church's esteem? Oh! How its praise poureth over in the words of the Church Fathers. The great theologian Tertullian spelleth it out:

“And do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway”

Saint Clement of Alexandria maketh it clear:

“Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman." 

Hush, hush, I say. I seek to fill thee too, but not with shame. The great new Churchian Martin Luther, thus spake a reformation:

“Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, it does not matter; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for." 

Oh dear, though turneth pale! Dost not now the tradition of Saint Valentine fill thee with glee? Let me not scare thee away from thine sweet dreams. Ah, yes! We are the converted pagans, let us be innocent in our sleep, why talk of bygones when we have now been given the new, improved and Hallmark affirmed Saint Valentine (or two), all the better to pay for it. Canst thee share this letter with all thine friends then and spread the Good News?

I am to say to thee “Be My Valentine” but I know not why my knees be weak. Must I invoke the name of Valentine to profess my love to thee? Some distant nightmares of blood, murder and ravishment still my heart and my pen.

Canst I not speak my love for thee every day?

Your one and only,

Pag Anboy.

Pag Anboy writes emotionally, but speaks truly. In India there have been two views on Valentines Day, the “in” crowd that is happy to copy whatever the West packages up and the clue-less danda-wallas going about and burning greeting cards.

It is time for the pagans to get smarter. To celebrate love is indeed great, this has always been our birthright before Victorian morality weaved sexuality as sin into our thoughts. As romantic relationships become prevalent “Valentines Day” gives a great excuses to express these. But Valentine is hardly a celebration of love – only of cultural subjugation. So how about we create a new festival that, just co-incidentally, falls on Feb. 14 as well – we can at least learn something from the pagan conquest. So let's celebrate Feb. 14 as Kalpana Divas and find something to truly celebrate – of soaring to new heights, of imagination, of love. Instead of misogyny let us celebrate the life of a girl from small-town Karnal who spread her wings and flew. And an image that can inspire every child in India.

The government should officially designate Feb 14 as Kalpana Divas. School children can use their kalpana, to write, draw and create their dreams and imaginings, their plans and ideas. Adults too can join and take up that hobby they had always dreamt of, plan the life they had always wanted in their hearts, take the chance, take the risk of forging a new path.

And lovers? Arre, use your kalpana! Archies can print out a new batch of cards with a signature tune for the teenie boppers:

“Keh do na. Keh do na. You are my kal-pa-na.”

Can women send these cards to their lovers just as well as men can? Sure. After all, if men and women can today can say “Be my (Saint?!) Valentine” and get used to it, “You are my Kalpana” sounds a heck of a lot more meaningful.:)

You are the star of my eyes
The stuff of my dreams
The stirrings of my imagination
You are my Kalpana.

There – just the right stuff for an Archies card. Coming up with better ditties is left as an exercise for the readers.

But Kalpana is not only restricted to love, of course. Kalpana can inspire us to find and live our dreams and stretch for the skies. Kalpana Divas opens up to far more creative possibilities than a mere Valentine's day. So here are a few exercises:

1. Take some index cards and start to write down everything that you wish to do in life before you die. One item per index card. Consider five areas of your life –Personal/Family, Career, Social, Cultural and Spiritual. Label each of the items you have written with one or more of these categories. Spend some more time thinking of items that have none. Later on you can sort and arrange cards, put years and dates on them – in other words plan out everything you want to do. Use your kalpana!

2. Imagine you have just been told that you only have 1 year to live. How would you spend your time?

3. Imagine that you have just died. You are hovering over your body and watching all the people who are there. Who is around you? What are they saying? A few days later an obituary appears in the newspaper. What would you like your obituary to say? Write it out.

Contemplating death can be a focusing point of reflection for life. Kalpana's jeevan and mrityu both combine in the story of Kalpana Divas to give it meaning.

So go ahead. Try it this February 14 on Kalpana Divas!

Notes:

1. There are a number of different versions of how a likely pagan festival got turned into “Saint Valentine's” day.
Here's one: A history of Valentines Day

2) The holocaust in the Americas is well documented in several books. See: Churchill, Ward.
A Little Matter of Genocide Stannard, David.
American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World

3) For Church misogyny, see: Daly, Mary. The Church and the Second Sex.
For some web quotes, Church leaders on Women