The modern Valentine's Day is a distortion of truth. It is a passing craze encouraged by smart businessmen who see it as a great way to sell related merchandise. The real religious significance of St. Valentine's Day is totally lost.

Valentine's Day Celebration is just a craze nowadays. Young people in India did not know about it a few years earlier. Not even in Europe was there any such thing called the Valentine’s Day celebration. India is still adjusting to the concept of having friends of the opposite gender. But to distinguish friend from Valentine is to suggest some new values to which the society still needs to come to terms with. Will it be at all possible to accept the concept of Valentine in Indian social life? Or is it just a passing phase?

Today all lovers of the world including those in India have united under one umbrella called 'Valentine's Day'. But such a craze is nothing more than a misuse of time and money. Love cannot be expressed in just one day. Love is a constant which flows like a river endlessly. But Valentine's Day has made love a one day wonder.

We in our youthful days did not have any Valentines. Shakespeare the ever romantic dramatist in his plays spoke of Twelfth Night festivities, or even created a character called Valentine who used to carry messages from the Duke for Olivia. But he did not mention any romantic Valentine. Nor did any of his lovers ever call each other Valentine.
 

It is a very recent trend to observe Valentine's Day as a day of romance. Earlier it was just a religious event. It was Saint Valentine's Day, an annual holiday observed to honour Christian martyrs. It was started by Pope Gelasius I in 496 A.D. Even Chaucer who for the first time in the High Middle Ages regarded it as a courtly tradition used the ceremony for the expression of holy love in the Canterbury Tales.

Modern Valentine's Day does not include all these religiosities. It has been encouraged chiefly by the online sites and greetings cards' sellers.