The Cobbler

On the pavement of a busy street, he sits on his hips with his heels joint and thumbs spread wide open. Between them he claws a shoe and with his skilled hands stitches it in an old practiced move.

A needle with a hook pierces through the leather of the shoe and comes back out with the thread, he directs it again into the flesh of the shoe and pulls it out.

His hands are dark like chocolate, his feet black like tar, nails long and hard like worn out plastic, and his unmoisturized skin has patches of silver linings. He has wide spread moustache and small strands of white beard cover his dark face in a perfect contrast.

I write this as he is mending my shoes, with his eyes and hands and feet fixed at my service. Skillfully he masterstokes the stitches and moves to the next after each.

A small shop, with perhaps a bagfull of belongings, steated outside someone else's shop in dusty clothes, yet he carries an attitude of a king. People come and bargain, and he blunty replies, "Itne se kam mai nahi hoga sahab, kahin aur karwalo. Humpe kaam ki kami nahi hai."

"Yeh note dusra do, hum nahi lenge. Aise fate note sarkari bank'o' m chalte hain," he doesn't stop back at insulting either.

Amidst his short temperd talks I provoke him for a reply by a question- "Aapse pichli baar ek bag mai silai karwai thi voh agle hi din tut gai."

And comes his prompt reply in his blunt Bihari accent, "Ab samaan bhariyega dunia bhar ka toh tutegi nahi kya?"

He cuts off the thread when the circumference is complete. He adjusts the tongues back into the shoes and laces them back as they were.

"Lijiye ab paheniye, muh band kar dia dono ka," he says.

I take them back, and they are now sure to look handsome amongst the girlie boots in my workplace.

"Here," I hand him two twenty rupee notes.

And he replies, "Sarkari bank m diniyega yeh note, hume dusra deo."

I change it for him, and he glides it into his chest pocket.