At other stores displaying only high-end labels, February 14 didn’t turn out to be too special a day. “People are quoting budgets between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and we hardly have anything to offer in that,” said Advait Shete, brand promoter, Espirit. In fact, the watch counter at Piramyds has seen only two or three sales since February, even as the artificial jewellery section right next door was abuzz with activity.

Having entertained countless customers on February 13 and 14, this section was unable to keep count. “Everyone first heads to the gold and diamond displays, but when it is time to shell out money, they prefer to come here,” said Vahiza Sayyed, senior sales associate at Piramyds.

And with a variety of bracelets, necklaces, anklets and earrings, especially stocked for Valentine, there was a wide range to choose from. With a clientele consisting primarily of teenagers, artificial jewellery brands recorded sales as as high as Rs 1 lakh in a day. “You can buy more items in a set budget, even if it isn’t very impressive,” said 18-year-old Kapish Mehra, who picked up a silver ring and anklet for his date. But sales of ‘a-woman’s-best-friend’ were not affected much.

Revealing a sale upwards of Rs 80,000, diamond jewellery continued to catch the fancy of the slightly older generation. “A lot of married couples came in to buy rings and pendants,” said Rathod. But they find flavour with the younger lot too. “Diamonds signify love and beauty, so when asked what I wanted, I picked the diamond,” said Pallavi Pethkar, a student of commercial art.

Besides this, the other avenue where many chose to splurge was perfumes. Here, however, most preferred to stick to fancy labels. Davidhoff, Nina Ricci, Calvin Klein and Kenneth Cole witnessed high sales. “Our customers were mostly men and many picked small bottles, but made sure that it was a known brand,” said Yogesh Dongre, a sales person.

Protests on FC Road, Shaniwarwada
VALENTINE’S Day celebrations in the city remained low profile as most couples chose to stay away from the usual hangouts fearing violence by Shivsainiks. And protests by the sainiks too were a low key affair as only two small incidents were reported in FC Road and Shaniwarwada.

On FC Road, Sainiks brought down a heart-shaped Valentine decoration opposite Hotel Vaishali and destroyed it. While in the second incident, sainiks snatched flowers from some vendors and shooed them away.

However, protests toned down in the evening as young couples exchanged flowers, greetings and gifts amidst heavy bandobast deployed in the city, especially near greeting card galleries and flower shops on FC Road and MG Road.

The city unit of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha, in a release, attributed the low key celebrations to the rejection of western ideology by young Puneites. No major incident of violence was reported in the city, the release said.

A release issued by the students and youth development committee of Pune City District Congress Committee stated that its volunteers visited various colleges and ensured that no eve teasing incident took place