CUPID ABOUT TOWN...

Cupid walks in soft woollen socks over pebbles and rocks....A faux pas to the core,he trips over other peoples' careless shoelaces, mumbles an embarrassed 'sorry!' that is audible only to him(and to the laces ofcourse) and bumps into disapproving brick coloumns that make gleeful sparrows and winking stars do a mambo around his halo...His journey had been bad,bad enough to stuff 'it' into a non-recyclable polythene packet, throttle the gaping mouth of the packet with a silvery twine and then kick it with the fury of one whose 'love-coated' arrows and golden bow had been detained at the airport security-check for want of a licence! Then there had been the ruffians at the bus-terminus...the apparently 'busy souls' who bump into people with the Providential duty of relieving them of all wordly possessions...Bumping imto him had been disappointing for them,he had no pockets...but for him,the violiation had been complete...first of his powers, and then of the snug overcoat of immunity that he believed, protected his immaculate frame from the dangerous eddies of 'imperfect human life' manifested in the impatient honking of ghoulish metallic animals, ridiculously high electric bills and ofcourse, licences!...
Thus Cupid walks still...blistered feet,blood oozing through the tiny windows of his soft woollen socks...but the steppings are more confident now,more adapted to the merciless pebbles and rocks...he now swings a grim-looking briefcase in his left hand,with the right, takes a long contemplative drag of a cigarette...and while he walks,he smiles...a sudden secretive smile like a sudden naughty peck on the cheek...a smile brought about by the thought of that first glimpse of a tattered dictionary where under the word 'Cupid'(searched out in an initial desperate attempt to assert his position in this alien world) he had discovered a still better word...a much more interesting prospect..a word that was to become his gateway into this world...the innocuous word- 'CUPIDITY'......