The florists at the five-star hotel down the road are as discreet as they are expensive. But

they?re happy to chat about Valentine?s Day orders, naming no names. ?Business booms, and though orchids and exotic flowers are still popular, a surprising number of our clients prefer red roses.?

Men are still big February 14 spenders. But increasingly, business also comes from women who order flowers to be sent to themselves. ?If desired, one of our staff will sign the card or note ? ?from your greatest fan? is popular. So is ?with love from a secret admirer?.? He catches the incredulous expression on my face and adds, ?It?s for confident women who want to celebrate themselves.?

I tell a group of women friends about this incident. Later, when we?re cleaning up in the kitchen, one of my pals starts talking. She?s a successful woman in her 40s with her own marketing company, and though she?s dated several men, none of them have quite measured up.

?The point is never to allow dissatisfaction to take over any part of one?s life,? she starts off tentatively. Then she tells me about the kind of Valentine?s Day presents she used to receive in her 30s. Cheesy fur-lined handcuffs. Wilting pink roses. Expensive chocolates she never ate. Stuffed toys (?so infantile, so unimaginative?). Watches, for a woman who already had one for each outfit. ?What I really want these days is funk. An old Sex Pistols record ? used to love the band. Black silk pajamas. Gizmos. I love gizmos.?

It?s the kind of stuff, she confesses, that she gets only from her women friends ? or that she has to buy for herself. ?At 40, no one gives you Valentine?s Day cards. So I get my own; my own flowers, my own funky stuff, everyone at the office thinks I?m doing so well, and I?m happy.?

?It?s about image,? concurs another. For her, it?s just business ? she heads a merchant banking division, is the original Gucci and Blahnik babe, and has a very absent-minded husband. It?ll look bad, she tells us, if it seems that her husband can?t be bothered on Valentine?s Day ? so she orders what she wants and has it delivered to her office with a card ?from him?. ?Of course,? she says, ?it?s on his credit card.?

I?m thinking it was so much easier when we were young: the man of the moment begged, borrowed or stole enough to buy one red rose, you both forked out for a bread-pakora and that was it. Then I meet this guy online, a Delhi teenager whom we?ll call Akash.

Akash runs a Valentine?s Day service aimed at affluent young men. For a fee ranging from small to quite handsome, he will arrange a lot of stuff. SMS messages, purportedly from lovelorn young women asking for a date, to the man?s cellphone ? ?his friends think he?s really popular?. Film tickets for two, or cards signed ?Guess Who?? are a little more expensive. The highest priced service involves getting a pretty young woman to go up to the man ?when he?s in public ? and ask him whether he remembers they have a date.

Last Valentine?s, Akash cleaned up to the tune of Rs 10,000. That?s roughly what my friends spent on themselves on February 14. Happy Valentine?s Day.