Perhaps Indians are the greatest lovers. The fact is that they have got time for love just as they have time for work and sleep. An Indian male who is head over heels in love with a damsel can spend three hours every day singing love songs and dancing just to express his love. And the girl, if she is not convinced, will just sit down looking at him won­dering if he is not out of his mind.

So the boy will need a lot of stamina to do three hours a day just expressing and portraying love. When the girl finally agrees to be in love, she also has to join and do three hours. Just watch Indian films and you’ll realise that matters of the heart cannot be toyed with in that country.

I guess the incidence of broken hearts there will also be very high because when love between two peo­ple becomes too intense, the rela­tionship crumbles sooner than anyone would expect.

It is also possible that half the cases of broken hearts in India end up at the mental hospitals because of the way they handle love.

“What actually is disturbing you?” the psychiatrist would ask a new victim.

“Sir, I fell in love with a young woman and she jilted me. Later, I saw her in the arms of an ugly man, and so I’ve decided to grow mad until further notice.”

Yes, love is one of the greatest forces we have in the world. That is why when a man with a cutlass in hand catches another man on top of his wife, he’ll instantly become a butcher specialising in human bare-backs and legs. He would hack the man to pieces before realising that butchering is not his profession.

And when he is charged in court for manslaugh­ter, he’ll explain mat­ters to the judge.

“Your honour, the man whom I butchered to death really deserved it. He is not fit to live because he reaps where he has not sown. Your honour, I had to borrow large sums of money to enable me marry this woman. I buy her Valen­tine cards every year, and spend a great deal furnishing her with cloths and jelly-curl kits. In fact I love her like gari and shito.

“When I travelled and returned earlier than planned, I came to meet this man with a barrel chest and a slim but active waist enjoying my wife to the fullest. So your honour, it was out of extreme provocation that I quickly decided to be a butcher on the occasion, and I think I did a good job of it.

“Your honour, I never knew I was such a good butcher till I worked on the man. But if you say it is not good, then I hold your foot. Next time, I won’t kill the person. I’ll only hack off his legs and tell him not to be silly next time.”

In cases of this nature, the judge is normally sympathetic because he (the judge) might have done worse things if he had found a macho-man dancing top of his flexible wife.

“You should have exercised re­straint. You don’t kill someone just because you’ve found him sleeping with your wife?” the judge would say just short of adding that he would have castrated the man if he were the accused. “So you’ll go in for eight months.”

If he had his own way, he would have concluded. “Next time you catch an idiot on top of your wife, don’t kill him, maim him! You get the point? “

Yes love, just like hatred is a real force to reckon with. For this rea­son, Valentine’s Day is well observed in most countries especially the advanced countries where people are accustomed to certain romantic gim­micks. It is a day for lovers and it has a short but varying history behind it.

In Africa, most people do not care about Valentine because they are preoccupied with seeking the king­dom of the stomach. If you remind someone of Valentine’s Day, he’ll ask you, “ibi Valentine you go chop?”

Last Sunday was Valentine’s Day and some people celebrated it, I don’t know how properly the peo­ple celebrated it. I don’t know how properly the celebration was done in each respective case. People sent out cards; someone probably ex­pected card from me that she never got, and I didn’t get a card myself, but life continues all the same, and love perpetuates.

In retrospect, I think the type of love we experienced when we were schoolboys and girls, was far more exciting than anything happening on Valentine’s Day. It was devoid of intimacy but fully of abstract values and imaginings about a loved one you regarded not as a mortal, but a celestial being.

Most often you had to write a love letter to the girl in decent handwriting and of course you didn’t expect a reply. But the thrill of hav­ing sent your lover something to read which probably ended in poem you composed yourself was more satisfy­ing.

But immediately you delivered the letter through a friend, you started praying that the girl should never send the letter to the class teacher for redress. And any time the teach­er called you, you were startled, thinking the girl had delivered the contraband. If she did, then trouble awaited you.

I wrote one of such letters with a poem at the tail end but never found the courage to send it to my dream lover. I hid it in my science note-book for weeks debating in my mind whether or not the girl would report me if I dared send it to her.

One day, the girl told me she had received the letter. Which letter? Of course the one I wrote. I looked puzzled.

“Didn’t you write me any letter,” she asked. “I did, but…”

I needed to check my notebook to see if the letter was intact. I looked for it for almost two hours to my dis­may that someone had rather deliv­ered the letter on my behalf.

I went back to the girl, and asked her who gave her the letter. Of course, it was a close friend of mine who found it in my notebook and who realising that I was apprehensive about sending it, mischievously did so on my behalf. I was lucky it didn’t wind up on the table of the class teacher.

Love goes beyond affection for the opposite sex or love for another human being, like motherly love, brotherly love, etc. There is one important thing which is called LOVE FOR ONE’S COUNTRY. When it is ex­cessive, it is called JINGOISM.

Yes, it is necessary that everybody should have a fair amount of a love for his or her country. Ghanaians love their country so much, and that is why they support their national teams whenever they are on any as­signment that would bring in national honours.

Those who do not love their country are those who do not want sustained progress and development. They include corrupt officials, em­bezzlers of state funds and of course those who incite and promote vio­lence. They want to destroy Sikaman just because they have not found the means to personal aggrandizement.

They should not pretend they love the country because they do not wish the country any good.

Let us show love for our country and maintain the peace that we have always enjoyed. For, the love for one’s country supersedes all.