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Matters of the heart
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.
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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