It
started with being a shoe, and waiting for someone to come and become my
rightful owner. I was displayed on the stands of an all time lighted showcase,
where buyers frequented all day long. Often, the store-boy would take me out of
the stand and suggest me to his customers, whose stinking feet I would have to
smell and keep smelling with no other choice. There were variety of them, some
with week’s long unwashed moist socks, some with communicable allergy, and some
with open wounds and pus flowing out. I was helpless, and had to fit into
everyone’s feet entirely as the store boy wished to.
Had
I been capable of selecting the feet that would wear me, I bet I would have
discarded them all of the privilege that they enjoyed by wearing me and walking
a few steps back and forth in front of the mirror and showing off how elegant I
made them look.
During
my tenure of eight days three hours on the stand, besides smelling rotten feet I
have also heard and learnt a lot of things that these stinking humans with
branded ironed clothes on the outside and stinking unwashed socks beneath them
say. One of those things is, “Every man has his day!” I believe the same is
true for shoes as well. And ever since I heard this thought, ironically from
the most pathetic of all men who ever wore me, I muttered back instantly, “If
you can have a day, then surely I shall also have one.”
The
day came, on the seventh of July, on a hot summer day, when people drenched in
sweat were coming in to check me out. It was a tough time repeatedly passing on
from one person to another. I changed a total of six feet, (three people,
unfortunately with two each) in three hours with none of them buying me. I was
thankful that they didn’t buy me, as it would have been one hell of a task to
cope up with their poisonous stink. Moreover, it also wasn’t that I couldn’t
tempt them, but that they couldn’t afford me.
Finally,
the minute arrived and halted at ‘Feet & Shoes Limited’, a young dynamic
man in his thirties walked in with a pit-pat sound of hard heels. Alike all, he
too wore ironed clothes, but his sophisticated short-step gait signaled
something outside usual. He settled directly in front of me and through my lace
holes I tried sniffing his feet as he loosened the shoe and took it off. I was
startled to see that they were fresh, dry and odorless. The store boy started
offering him shoes one after the other, and he rejected them in the same chronological
order. I was happy to see him reject them, while bubbles of joy emerged within
me. When his eyes finally fell on me, I looked back at him without a blink and
it seemed as if he had already accepted me. The store boy picked me up and
parted my belly and the man gently thrust his foot in it. And then the other,
even gently. There was no smell of sweat, his stockings were fresh and smelled
of camphor. Moreover, the way he handled me was like the way a mother handles
her new born, gentle and caring.
I
wanted him to buy me, but he walked out of the shop after an unfinished
settlement over the price. My heart shrunk as he started moving out of the
shop, for I was better convinced that no one as gentle and clean as him would
ever lay foot in this shop. I wanted him to buy me, I twitched in anger and
defeat while my fellow companions laughed and joked at me. I yelled at the peak
of my voice, just to hear my own wails back. Nothing helped. And with his disappearance
from the door I believed that the just witnessed good moment was all over and
lost. It would be better to think that it never happened.
As
I dropped all hopes of him, he reemerged, in somewhat bigger steps than before,
and my heart leaped with joy. Every shoe beside me frowned and waited along
with me to see what would happen next. He exchanged a few words with the store
boy and finally taking out his wallet handed him crisp notes.
I
was sold.
That
was my day!
The
store boy kept me in a box and handed me over to him, he took me and placed me
on the rear seat of his car and drove away, to somewhere. Lying there in that
box and sniffing to the dull cardboard smell I thought how different and
refreshing this smell was as compared to the stink of the every second common
man who used to put me on. However, not every shoe like me would get a
smell-less fresh feet owner and thus for them this smell of the cardboard would
be a refreshing smell, before it would be again worn by its creepy owner.
Life
at home was different. He had a younger brother, who wore me during his plays
and by the time we entered back home, I would be covered under a thick layer of
mud and stains of all kinds. He was a ruthless brat and unlike his elder
brother lacked the skills of taking proper care and keeping away stains. He
would dirty me every Saturday during his match and his elder brother would wash
me clean the next day. I loved the way his elder brother took care of me, for
it was all one could offer me, and indeed even more that I would have ever
demanded. Somehow, the better part in getting dirty by him was that his feet
too didn’t stink.
Days
passed and then months, while I clung tight to my ropes and stitches from
falling apart, despite the fact that my limited age and my rightful owner’s
younger brother’s unpitying use brought creases and wrinkles on my beautiful
body, the same routine continued almost every Saturday and Sunday until one day
I fell open just beneath the right thumb. My stitches were worn out and cut
open, the younger brother kept me in the shoe rack and took out another pair;
his plays continued, my life took a standstill.
Almost
a week later, the elder brother took notice of me, he brushed the mud off me
that had dried in patches and layers, he washed the grease stains and then took
me to the cobbler. Nine cross stitches, and I was back to normal. I felt so
indebted and gratified to him, for he really was my rightful owner. I wanted to
be with him, till my last day, until I would wither off completely and open up from
all around. I knew, I would never find a man better than him, an owner more impressive
and gentle.
But
they ‘humans’ say, as I have heard a number of times, (and what seemed so true
just the next moment), that, “Life is full of surprises and unexpected things.”
As
he was walking me back from the cobbler’s place, a cab running at more than a
hundred kilometers an hour knocked him down while he was crossing the road. A
loud screeching noise of the tires, a loud bang of collision, the noise of
bones colliding with the windshield and bonnet, and then a halt filled with his
wails and moans in the air of complete silence while people started rushing in
from all places. The silence faded gradually as people began talking, the way
the crowd always does. Everyone suggested something, but none came to help him,
someone called the ambulance, just because it was a toll-free number and no one
bothered where I was. The only person who would have bothered was lying half
dead, twitching in pain and shouting in helplessness. His right shoe had come
off his foot and was lying on the side of the road, while the left one still
hung on to him.
The
ambulance came and people rushed him in, and it drove off. People kept standing
for a few minutes on the spot and discussed the cause of the accident. The next
minute even they went off to their respective businesses, leaving me behind,
unclaimed and unwanted.
I
realized that it was the end of my life, but it wasn’t.
I
lay there, by the side of the road for the next many hours while people, hundreds
and hundreds of them, passed beside and over me, but none paid any attention to
me despite the fact that I was new and shining. For I was a single shoe,
unmatched and useless. Such is life, and such are these humans, they want you
as long as you can serve them some good.
The
other part of me, luckily managed to reach back home, with hopes that I won’t
be abandoned and perhaps they’ll go back to the accident spot and bring back
the one that’s lying there, but that never happened. Instead that evening they
didn’t keep me in the shoe rack, but threw me on the pile of plastic waste at
the corner of the lawn near the garage. My new companions were a rusted can,
two beer bottles, a stained cloth, dozens of plastic bottles and a few broken tiffin
boxes and coke bottles, and some broken accessories, to them all it hardly
mattered how young or beautiful I was, for I was useless without the other me. And
perhaps they all would be laughing at my nearing sudden tragic end, perhaps one
or two amongst them all would have felt pity.
Three
cars, four bikes, a heavy loaded truck and a roadways bus, a total of nine
vehicles and eighteen wheels passed over me, crushing me and deforming me. The despair
ended with the fall of the night as the traffic reduced and I lay there in a crumbled
form, on the same spot where my so caring owner had fallen down. As I lay for
more than an hour, and no vehicle passed over me I started gaining back my lost
consciousness. My muscles twitched back to normal and when I had almost turned
normal, a stray dog came and started sniffing at me, the way I used to sniff at
my master’s feet.
It
sniffed for some thirty seconds, when he finally grabbed me in his jaw and ran
away. I wondered if it was my rescue, or if it was just another form of trouble.
He took me to the foot of the flyover, settled down there and started chewing
me. I wanted to get free of him, as I had hopes of living more, I had hopes of reuniting
with my other part and to live the remaining of my life again in the feet of my
humble owner, but the dog was uncared and merciless, it kept on chewing me,
piercing those long canines in and out like needle on a cloth. In between he
licked me with his wet tongue, and sometimes he would keep me down for a few
seconds while he relaxed his jaw muscles. Just, in another moment he would
again start the painful discourse.
I
was deformed and had open up from the front again, but he kept on chewing
mercilessly. An hour later dawn broke, one of his feminine companions passed beside
us with a trail of dogs sniffing her genitals and following her. He instantly
dropped me on the ground, stretched his front legs, then the rear and joined
her admirers.
I
said to myself, “Dogs, will be dogs! May you never get what you desire,
bastard.”
As
she led the procession across a tunnel and went out of sight, something knocked
me on the heal. It was a metallic fell, an iron thing. I looked back to see it was
a rag picker.
He
picked me up, pulled my laces to check my battered state and tossed me into his
sack. From the dusty road I fell amongst plastic bottles, cardboard cartons and
tin cans
that he had gathered from all over across the city.
I
wondered if it meant the end of all troubles or the beginning of some more!
