'Coz PINK! is my color...

Aerosmith's colorful song... and bordering-on-hoarseness vocals make this one of my favorite songs... events in the last month seemed to bring out the true hue (as it were) of the varying shades of pink. Valentine's day was celebrated the world over... in India (a country of culture and old traditions) the trend to celebrate your "love" slipped into the mainstream a little over a decade ago. This seems to have coincided with the blossoming of the retail chain phenomenon revolving around cards... for birthdays, get well, anniversaries, sister, brother, other, father, friend, aliens? and other assorted relations (imagined or otherwise). This in turn gave way to hitherto 'new' concepts of 'celebrating' father's day and mother's day and friendships day and just-some-random-day-to-buy-a-card... the list goes on...In the light of that i would think that some anti-V day keepers of the conscience are justified in protesting against a capitalist for-profit exploitation of some very basic emotions.Love was now mainstream and young couples wanted to bowl their lovers over with bigger cards, larger gifts, mushier content and perhaps gave into the more expensive the better credo? Either that or then what commonly afflicts humans - the 'overkill' syndrome... just because a girl smiles back at you the guy is convinced she is hers... raging hormones interfere with incoming signals that clearly denote she's not THAT into you... So protestations against V-day are justified if {Aa} they are against the money driven celebration of the event which is advertisement fuelled {Bb} they are against youth getting carried away into obscene acts and behavior. That said... capitalism is now the way of live the world over... so can we reasonably expect any relief from MBAs wanting to make a buck for their employer by pinching our pennies? no matter that even pure true emotional bonds are game for manipulation... and who decides the moral code? this is the tricky part... The Indian cultural ethos does not NOT permit romantic liaisons... our social fabric perhaps frowns on overt male-female interactions till a person is married. this is true for large swathes of the country though not so for metros where love blooms in darkened alleys, deserted parks, lake fronts and any rendezvous possible. so are we being prudish? The educated, liberal, new-woman of india responded in a novel fashion. A facebook post started of a movement of reasonable large proportions that invited participation from all over the country... dubbed the "pink chaddi" brigade (Chaddi being the local for panties) these women donated their intimated to the office of a regional political organisation {NOTE: i avoid using the terms cultural/hindutva/hindu/other such moniker for i do NOT believe that they truly stand for what they claim}The good thing about this whole affair was that it received national coverage and displayed for the first time the common (wo)man's ability and desire to stand up for what (s)he thought was right. That they were able to find a voice and shout out is GREAT and calls for a round of applause... no taliban here.The bad thing was that they perhaps could have chosen another symbol instead of panties which to some women i have spoken to was a bit demeaning... initially the symbolism of women's emancipation or the "Lib"-era bra-burning was not lost on me... but was there an alternative way to show their ire?The best thing was that this motley crew had to tone down their rhetoric and i think free thought won the day.
Pink is the color... baby!yea...