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One more day, struggles to pass by…second by second…minute by minute. One more day, the world calls Valentine’s Day, struts by with ‘mushy’ songs on the FM and cupids flying all over the television set. One more day, when the morning sms and emails proclaim that ‘love’ is officially in ‘air’.

I cross the road to the opposite stall for my Saturday morning coffee and upma. The coffee is good there – some of it I carry back to my apartment in a steel glass, carefully packed by the mother for me to set up life in a new city. The news papers proclaim a ‘pink chaddhi’ war; I choose to stay oblivious to that. Today, the cupid will fly by…the advertisements say so.

I stare out from my veranda – the fever kicks in. In my feverish eyes I see the cupid struggling with his bow and arrow. Has it turned into a missile, I wonder! He is sweating, he cannot be at so many places – from the Archies store to the car dangler, from the flowers severed from the branches to the bouquets, to the bubbling champagne glass and the thumping discotheque. He pleads with me. He wants one soul, at least one soul, to leave him alone for the day.

The coffee has gone cold. The cupid stares at me. I decide to tame the White Tiger. Under the blanket, shivering, I leave the cupid alone – let me pass the minutes in the corrupt land with Jiabao - with a booker that seems so easy to pen. The minutes and the hours, today, will pass by. Let the love be in air, officially, for all.