Unfazed by threats, rallies and demonstrations by religious hardliners in several cities, youngsters today celebrated St Valentine's Day with a gusto, exchanging chocolates and roses as the Valentine bug spread to rural areas where the youth put up balloons to woo partners on Lover's Day.
Shops decorated with heart-shaped balloons did roaring business as cards and red roses sold for the asking at triple the normal price with many a teenager thronging shopping malls to celebrate Valentine's Day in the capital.
Restaurants and hotels offered special deals for couples while radio and TV stations relayed messages of young lovers on their networks, like many English dailies.
However, Shiv Sainiks, members of the Shiv Sena, who have been violently protesting against the celebration of what they call a western idea and culture in recent years, burnt down posters and cards in front of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in Lucknow to register their protest and raided several parks and restaurants to track down young couples.
Led by Deputy chief of Sena's Lucknow unit, K K Sharma caught several couples moving about in parks and forced them to do push ups and chided them for following western culture, party sources said.
The Sena has given a call against celebrating Valentine Day and threatened to force couples caught moving about in the city today to tie the nuptial knot, said Vijay
Tiwari, the state unit chief of Shiv Sena.
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The police said no incident of violence and arson was reported from any part of the city although Bajrang Dal activists and kept crisscrossing the city streets shouting slogans against the event.
Popular market places like New Market, Habibganj area and Maharana Pratap Nagar became the main target of the anti-Valentine activists. As the hardliners patrolled the cities to "enforce" Indian culture, reports from Tamil Nadu spoke of youth celebrating Valentine's Day in remote villages.
In Kannappan Moolai in Nagapattinam district, for the second straight year most of the youngsters, who are construction labourers and elementary school dropouts, put up hand written posters on the walls of houses extolling the virtues of love.
Most of them do not even know the history of Valentine's Day. They just call it 'Lover's Day', said 25-year old Raja, adding that his bachelor friends would use the occasion to convey their love to their dear ones. Last year, the youth in the village had put up a huge heart shaped balloon on Valentine's Day, he recalled.
In areas like Kuttalam, near Mayiladuthurai, some youth put up posters while others penned poems on love and the Love God. The more enthusiastic ones hung heart shaped balloons on buses in the area and pasted bills.
