All About Shoes

Few weeks back, I was getting ready to visit the Capital City of Thimphu the next day to attend to one of my appointments at my department headquarters. Since my proposed stay at Thimphu was only for a period of three days, I didn’t think it was necessary to pack so many clothes or shoes in my luggage other than the basic essentials which included an extra gho and a few shirts. I decided that I would go with only one pair of office shoes and that too, worn on my feet! My natural concern wherever I go is to travel light and arrive at my destination with whatever clothes that I pack in a fairly pristine state. In any case, I am frugal when it comes to clothing and I generally tend to stick to a limited wardrobe and has never attached much importance to the necessary element that goes towards making a classy man, ie, clothing.

Talk about shoes, I am embarrassed to mention that I had never owned more than two pairs of cheap but presentable shoes at any point of time in my life, the costliest being a pair of the ubiquitous Bata brand for which I had half heartedly parted with a grossly unfair amount of Rs. 1,600/- from New Delhi! Unlike my craze for gadgets and electronics, I had always ignored the need to own branded and quality shoes and did not know the caveats to look out for when making a shoe purchase. My only criteria were that 1) It should fit my feet, 2) It should be presentable, and 3) The cost should not be more than Nu. 1000/- a pair!

 

The next day, my driver and myself reached Gedu, the small town covered in the mist where we stopped for lunch in a popular restaurant run by a Tibetan Ama. We observed that the restaurant was crowded. However, as a govt. official commuting in a govt. vehicle, neatly dressed in a smart gho and with polished shoes and all other paraphernalia that goes towards making an officer-on-duty look complete, I was positive that the restaurant Ama would recognize my personality and provide us a table as she had always done in the past.

 

It was slightly drizzling and the road was muddy. I stepped out of the car and as I started walking towards the restaurant, I briefly slipped on the muddy road but managed to regain my balance abruptly. However, I felt that something was not right with my left foot. As I looked down, I was petrified with the scene that greeted me! The soles of my left shoe was torn to bits and had completely come off revealing my toes covered in socks!

 

 

All hell broke loose! It was a panicky situation, and the worst part was that there was no immediate solution at hand, because, I didn’t even have a pair of slippers in my baggage, let alone extra shoes!  Now, the dignified govt. official personality that I wanted to display at the restaurant died a natural death and instead, I hastily limped inside and timidly occupied an empty table at the corner-most of the restaurant, ignoring the humble greetings of the Ama while making sure that nobody cast a glance at my left foot! After a hasty lunch, I handed over my wallet to the driver and asked him to pay at the counter while I quickly limped back to the car.

 

As we journeyed over Chukha and Chimakothi, I was fully preoccupied with serious and nerve-wracking thoughts on the various course of action that I should resort to upon reaching Thimphu in order to get out of my precarious situation and save myself from the embarrassment while hunting for shoes in the town barefoot! I even visualized meeting some acquaintance in town (which is not unlikely in a small society like ours), looking down at my shoeless feet and becoming flabbergasted while pitifully concluding that their poor friend has become completely insane! As I ruminated over these disturbing thoughts, I hardly realized that we were already zooming over the expressway at Thimphu and entering the town.

 

As we parked near the streets, I was startled to see myself revealing all the traits of a drowning man trying to catch hold of a straw to save himself!. I requested my driver to let me borrow his shoes while he stayed in the car. Wearing his smelly and oversized shoes on my feet, I quickly entered a shoe shop and surveyed the merchandize. There were shoes of all shapes and sizes but none fitting my small sized feet! I walked to the next shop and was met with the same fate. After entering and exiting from about six shoe shops and silently blaming my parents for the predicament I was in because of the size of my feet, I finally managed to find a pair of shoes meeting my criteria except the price which was tagged at Nu. 1,200/-. But emergency situations calls for emergent decisions and considering the situation that I was in, I had no luxury of choice! Therefore, I meekly parted with the amount and wore the new shoes inside the shop itself.

 

The next day, I wore the new shoes and stepped out of my sister’s residence at the NPPF colony to go to my departmental headquarters only to realize that it was Tuesday - a Pedestrian Day, which meant that I had to walk the whole day in my new shoes! Of course I had the choice of taking a taxi. But eversince the Ped Day was initiated, I had always believed that taking a taxi defeated the very purpose of observing Pedestrian Day. Therefore, being a man who had always lived by my own principles and belief, I chose to walk to the office which was about two kilometers away!

 

On reaching the office at my headquarters, I met a dear friend and a colleague whom I shall name here as Deki. Deki is the first person that I always choose to meet at my headquarters irrespective of the kind of works I may have there, not because of the intellectual prowess or intellectual aloofness that we may have in common, but more so, because of the personal bond of friendship that we share. We were classmates during the college days and having joined the same department many years ago, we have seen eachother grow matured in the department together while also being witness to both the highs and lows of eachother’s lives and career. Furthermore, most of the times she is brutally honest with no strings attached and at any point, she will not hesitate to call a spade, a spade! With her, I could always have a frank discussion on any matters, that is, if you could at all call it a discussion, because, she would do most of the talking while I would be the patient listener!

 

Okay.. I told her the whole story about my misadventure with the torn shoes. As expected, she lambasted me with many a words about my ignorance on the benefits of buying and wearing quality shoes and instead settling for the cheaper ones. She went on to great lengths to convince me on why shoes for men should be an obsession and a passion, and also educated me as to how people evaluate and make judgment on a man simply by looking at the quality of his shoes because of the fact that shoes are the only additional adornment (apart from the gho) that Bhutanese men can proudly flaunt, and so on and so forth. Listening to her veritable words of wisdom regarding the shoes made me realize how disconnected and adrift I had been from the everyday realities concerning shoes and how I had been living all along in the conceptualized universe of my own creation with regard to what I wore on my feet!

 

Today, I am the proud owner of two extra pairs of branded shoes in my shoe rack, a pair of Hush Puppies and a pair of Woodlands shoes. It took me a lady-friend’s sincere and honest tongue-lashings to produce a good effect upon my disposition and see reality straight in the face! I now realize that quality shoes, irrespective of how high the cost, does matter!