Happy Ballantines!

You see, Turkey, even in its gray-looking, gray-thinking capital, has ceased to be a safe place for the unattached on Saint Valentine’s Day. On the shopping street of Tunalı Hilmi, love’s commercial delights are all on display. It has been a dry season with the economic crisis and sales down to seventy percent, coupled with red hearts of St Valentine, may, just may, come to the rescue of the ever (c)losing shops.

Perhaps, in this strange cultural context, there are people who take their sweethearts for a romantic dinner of tripe soup, with much vinegar and garlic. This is the only explanation that I can think of for the red St Valentine balloons marking the occasion at the windows of traditional soup kitchens! But can someone explain to me just how the Valentine hearts will have a boosting effect on pharmacy sales? "Here, my love, take an aspirin, so you will not have a headache tonight after the tripe dinner I am planning to offer you..."

St Valentine’s touch-up

"If your hair needs a touch up, do come back early for Valentine’s Day,’’ said my hairdresser as he arranged my hair into a complicated chignon. I did not have the heart to tell him that there was little chance of letting my hair down for st/C-upidity this year. Besides, I was too busy reading the Alem magazine to see how the rich and beautiful would be passing their V-Day!

So there you are, gentle reader, with a glimpse of the Turkish jet-set, bold, beautiful and in love: "My best St Valentine’s was when Gürdal sent me a truck full of rose petals," said Ivana Sert, Turkey’s version of poor gaudy Ivana Trump. Gürdal, a baby-buttock-faced businessman, who is discreet about the way he earns money but not at all discreet about the way he spends it, clearly impressed Ivana very much with this gesture. The poor girl, being Russian, was blissfully unaware that the rose petal gesture is one that is often practiced in second-rate night clubs in Ulus, Ankara; though not with such extravagance.

In other couples, it was the female of the species who came up with gestures of endearment. Ms Ronit Gülcan, of lion’s mane and permanent suntan, surprised her mature lover Cem Hakko, the heir to the Vakko shops, with tickets to a James Blunt concert in Rotterdam. No wonder Mr Hakko divorced his wife of twenty-odd years for the honey-coloured bosom of Ronit.

Alem wonders how some celebrated couples will celebrate their first Saint Valentine’s together: Derin Mermerci, Istanbul society’s very touchable Ice Queen, who broke up with her now divorced boyfriend, is presently stepping out with Mr Tolga Egemen, the ex boy-friend of model-turned-stylist Ece Sükan. Given Ms Mermerci’s weakness for unavailable men and her habit of dropping them as soon as they leave their celebrity girlfriends and wives, Egemen-Mermerci affair could be over by the time you read this. Again according to Alem, Mrs Serra Tokar will be with her boyfriend Can Verdi. A proposal may mark the V-Day as Mrs Tokar, unlike Ms Mermerci, is a marrying woman. With two husbands to her credit, she tends to marry the guy she is photographed with.

The Turkish paparazzi are also very much interested in how Ms Deniz Akkaya will spend her February 14. Ms Akkaya, Turkey’s modelled-and-remodelled top model, was no saint, until she found some stability with Efe Özbilgin, TV world’s boy-wonder. The couple had been shot recently while Ms Akkaya was shedding tears, thus signalling trouble in paradise! Let us see whether they patch things up.

Love and faith

While I tried to keep my faith in St Valentine, I could not help but wonder (ah, how very Carrie Bradshaw this sentence is) whether others were trying to reconcile their faith with St Valentine’s Day.

A quick google search yielded results from two websites that profess to offer Islamic solutions to contemporary dilemmas.

"Dear Editor, the whole world is celebrating St Valentine’s Day (or, with the Turkish Translation, Lovers Day). Can we, as believers, do this as well?" Oh, our editors are resourceful. One replies that it is fine to celebrate St Valentine as long as it is considered the day of love, rather than of lovers. "Of course you can buy a gift on that day for your wife, because there should be love in a marriage, even if you are not in love in wedlock," said one creative Islamic editor. The reply from the second website was too good not to be translated here.

"This is a special date and there is no need to refrain from exchanging gifts between newly married or married couples. But if we refer to a celebration between lovers who are not married and living in sin, this is not acceptable. In fact, it would be a sin to celebrate something that is not condoned by our religion."

Happy Ballantines, young (or not so young) lovers!