February is upon us and so is the imposing air of love that will grip the city and the Nation spreading ‘love consciousness’ among people on the Valentine’s day. Yes, this month we are celebrating love and expressing our love in all means possible. Love is a beautiful thing and certainly a thing to be celebrated and treasured; something beyond the realms of money, fame and what not! I strongly believe in love and its magic and so for me, V-day, as it’s called by its aficionados, isn’t as special as I cannot put a constraint of a day or a month to my celebration of love. Yet, I will also not be against people celebrating their love on this day.
Celebration of love is a wonderful thing, but should it come at a price? Should it be at the cost of besmirching the beauty of a city or a country? Just as the title of this feature suggests, I am literally talking about the so called ‘art’, ‘graffiti” of expressing your love. Love can encompass many forms and so can your means of expressing it but that doesn’t mean that you can transform a historical monument into your love-note doodle. Not every art form is golden; nor are your thoughts or feelings and they are certainly repulsive if you put them in public places befouling them.
What I am talking about is the so called graffiti culture in India where the Romeos feel the need to inscribe their love in public places to immortalize their love. It is an extremely repulsive and stupid thing to do. You will find it everywhere; go to a public park and you will find a meticulously carved heart with names embedded along with on some tree or the other, the poles, seats of bus stops, public transports, the desk of Schools and College classrooms and of course the historical monuments are a living example of India’s answer to graffiti scribbles.
Our very own city is no exception; in fact it can give competition to any other graffiti-strewn cities of India. Walk down any area there are love notes scribbled on the walls. Take a look at any electric pole or the walls beside the streets or take a trip to the rural areas and small villages you will find your journey strewn with graffiti scribbles of love. Among them the prominent ones in our city are our temples: be it Kamakhya temple or Umananda or Basista Temple. Take a leisurely trip to the Kamakhya and starting from the first resting lookout point to the last, the walls, the boulders, the posts are strewn with love declaration.
On my recent trip to Kamakhaya which was a more of an outing to enjoy the fresh cool air and view rather than a pilgrimage; I was able to witness and record quite a handful, at the risk of being extremely modest, graffities of love declarations.
In the first look out stop “Rahul loves Sonia forever” and the extremely difficult but not quite cryptic equation : Pranab + Disha = Love, When I walked past that, blushing with all that love, I encountered “Mohan loves Meenu” but Raja loves Isha easily won the “Couple of Kamakhya” award as his heart was doodled the biggest around his name and his beloved. Then again in the ‘big rock’ which is the resting point cum photographic point cum adda point I come across a treasure trove of love notes, with hearts drawn with an arrow. SIGH!
Then again few days later, at the Uzan bazaar park which is the dating point of almost all lovers who want to add a touch of romanticism with a good view or some to save money I saw this tree. Now, this Dilip must be so much in love with Rita or he would not spend hours inscribing meticulously their name along with a heart and rose in the thick tree trunk! And I am sure all of you reading this will have your own versions of witnessing love notes in public places.
But the question is should we be okay with it? What do you all readers think about it? Should we consider it an annoying habit worth a few smiles, a form of amusement and disgust for some? Or should we take some considerable action to stop this besmirching? True! A repainting can restore the walls, posts , desk and benches; but what about our heritage sites? How do we restore their beauty and save them from becoming testimony of blooming love tales which last a whole month on their best days?
These blooming tales of love destroy not only the heritage monuments and sites but also deface the ambience and environment of the place. The damage is irrevocable in some places and in some other places maybe the help of conservation architects may help. Either way, Government intervention as well as the citizens’ cooperation is essential in conserving and keeping public properties, heritage sites free of mindless graffiti. It is not doing any wonders to the city’s decor and it’s time the defacement should be controlled, especially on the landmarks of the city.
It is not just a matter of few laughs, or moment of annoyance, disgust or overlooking, if we cannot curb it, any other measure would be purely a waste of time and resources and would be worth nothing. So what could be the solution or how do we find a solution? Penalties? Fine? But for that we need to catch the culprit in action and for that again the Government should employ “guards” or “supervisors” safeguarding the beauty of the public places. It’s a long shot but if we really work towards it we can cease the invasion to a considerable degree, if not completely stop the besmirching.
The reason defacement occurs because the offenders perhaps feel that there are no outlets to express their love or no ‘wall of expression’ to pour their heart out. But then there are so many possible outlets for the Romeos : how about a poem next time you get submerged in a bout of love and feeling like expressing it, even if it’s a cheesy one? Or how about a tattoo, it seems less tacky and if you cannot do either of those how about your Facebook wall or any other virtual medium? And if some fail to get either option there is still the good old method of writing in a paper and sticking it out. It’s time you control your bouts of love expression and think about the beauty of your city and nation.
[This article has been published in the magazine "Goodtimes...of the Northeast" in the February 2015 issue]
