Footloose

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Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, was often in the celebrity columns of our youth. Known as the Steel Butterfly, she declined to buy the Empire State Building saying that at 750 million dollars it was overrated and not worth it. She did buy the Crown Building, the Woolworth Building and the Harold Center though (they must have been ok at about 300 million dollars).

But she is famous most for her signature collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes...wow!

didi!!!

As I said earlier, none of us boys and girls at our Village School in the 1950s ever had any footwear.

Not that all of us were as poor as church mice. We had our Reddy landlords at either end of the high street, and between them they owned the bulk of the Village farms, very fertile. They didn't farm them with the sweat of their brows though. They had a couple of chauffeur-driven Fords and Chevrolets in their stables alright.

But their kids were footloose like us...born free, living free and forever free like Joy Adamson's lion cubs.

The concept of students shackling their tender feet was just not there. Our teachers did wear ancient chappals to the School Assembly as part of my HM Fathers' dress code, but were happy to leave them in their common room.

My father bought his chappals from the gray market of Nellore; and they were forever keeping him busy with his hobby of nailing. He had this 'nails-box' of which he was proud, and that deal-wood thing had his signature collection of 'chappal-nails', two hammers (the parent one for nailing his walls and the baby for nailing his chappals) and tweezers to pluck the bent nails. I have a suspicion he used to straighten them with another tool in his kit.

There were no cobblers in our street.

My mother, like any other middle class brahmin housewife, didn't stir out of our home much till all her seven kids grew up and she lost her youth thereby. Then on she wished to visit temples and ashrams and I guess she inherited the 'ex-chappals' of her college-going daughters. She is now 89 and her wealthy daughters gift her Imelda-style footwear, but she is happy with her didi-style rubber ones.

In fact the arrival in the Indian market of Hawai Slippers in the 1960s revolutionized our foot-habits. They were dead cheap (like our cell phones) and even village belles took to them like their cell-phones now. They were not regarded as 'bathroom' wear...who needs footwear to the bathrooms anyway?

When in the 1980s KGPian students started wearing their Hawai Slippers to their Exam Halls, there was an uproar and a dress code was invented by the authorities. And us invigilators were supposed to inspect their feet (instead of their roving eyes) and warn the miscreants.

This shows how fashions change...what was high class in the 60s became taboo in the 80s...sigh!

All I have against the ever-convenient Hawai Slippers of our University Years was that their straps tended to ease out of their holes while we were running desperately to catch the city bus to the Exam Hall. And the only thing you are supposed to do is remove and push them into your book-bag if you are lazy enough to carry one for a last minute 'preparation'. And, once seated in the bus, you try and push the dangling strap back into its hole and be careful. Ladies had the advantage that they carry safety pins with them in their money purses and so can use them to 'fasten' their temperamental slippers.

Like in any culture, you can't cultivate this footwear habit if you are not born to it (Ishani has a collection of half a dozen shoes with Son et Lumiere effects).

So, I am so happy and comfortable nowadays in Hyderabad. After exhausting all options, from Chinese, Batas, and other fancy brands, I have settled down to what are called Diabetic Chappals...not that either me or them have sugar complaint. Just that they are soft on the skin, wear out uniformly, and their straps don't come out of their holes.

Sweet and Sugary. They do cost a bit and at times I feel like Imelda pampering her feet, but what is a son for, if he doesn't care to pamper his Papa's Holy Feet?

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