Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards in Urban India

von Christiane Brosius

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In diesem Essay beschäftigt sich Brosius mit Grusskarten als Genre der populären visuellen Kommunikation und im Kontext Indiens. Durch den Vertrieb von Valentinstagskarten durch Archies (dem führenden Vertreiber von Geschenken und Grusskarten in Indien) wird die romantische Liebe ein zentraler Teil der materiellen Kultur der Mittelklassen in Indien. Die dabei transportierten emotionalen Darstellungen werden in der Symbolik und Sprache einer  vordergründig urbanen (emotionellen, selbstbewussten und kosmopoliten) „neuen“ Indischen Jugend dargeboten.

„Today, when sex scandals regularly hit the TV and printmedia news in urbanised India, and when home-made ‘porn’-videos are leaked to the public, with the most unexpected protagonists (students, housewives, businessmen, holy men), populating not parks but television and computer screens, encroaching and enraging the public imagination, the protests against V-cards seem almost naïve. Nevertheless, Valentine’s Day, whether or not one is critical of its alliance with conspicuous consumption and commercialization of feelings, and its material culture, of which the cards are an important part, continues to engage us with the complex fabric of India today, with the riddle of public and private space, with consumer brands and personal sentiments, and with the movement of social borders, as they are contested by such a diverse range of social agents, and media. Like all languages, the language of love, too, is constantly undergoing transformation and subject to appropriation and translation, always operating under the shadow of individual liberation and empowerment as well as moral panic and restriction.“

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