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Interviewer: Do you visit Church?
Bernard Shaw: Regularly
Interviewer: How often?
Bernard Shaw: Whenever I need a new pair of shoes
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None of us students in our Village School in Muthukur in the early 1950s ever had any footwear. One student, Raghu, the son of the newly arrived Doctor from Nellore (District HQ) and a very docile and decent chap was ragged so badly when he arrived in chappals that he preferred to do in Rome as Romans did...during the Games Period, one of his chappals was grabbed by the bully of the class and he was invited to take it back...only to find it thrown over his head to the next bully and the next and the next...kids can be cruel en masse.
But I recall a genuine saffron-clad Swamijee invited to our home for a lecture followed by simple grub arriving in wooden chappals that had just a toe-hold and nothing else. He left them outside our front door and me and my kid sisters who were playing outdoors had a competition walking them as far as we could without tripping and falling down...my youngest sister, all of 4, won the first prize...she dragged her feet without lifting them.
When I went to my MD Uncle's place to live under his roof to pursue my University Education, he looked at my bare feet and gave me Rs 10 to buy a pair of chappals...he was afraid of calumny...
That was the time when the Hawai Chappal Revolution was sweeping India. I could actually buy a pair with Rs 6 and saved Rs 4 as an emergency fund for riding on the City Bus # 10 whenever I missed the University Bus.
The problem with the Hawai Chappal was that its straps tended to come out of their holes and had to be pushed back in, which needed expertise. Most of the time we were stuck with one chappal and then we had to carry both in our bags alongside our text books like Worsnop & Flint (serves them right for writing such an expensive book). Ladies had an advantage since they had safety pins all over their body and used them as rivets...they didn't have pockets since they wore saris but they carried purses which held secret devices of all sorts...I happened to have a peek into one accidentally and it had a sheet containing readings for the notorious i-d Curve experiment.
When I started living in the campus of IIT KGP in 1965, they told me that only students were allowed to wear Hawai Chappals which they termed Bathroom Slippers. So, I had to go to the Bata Shop in Gole Bazaar and buy a costly pair of what they claimed were genuine leather chappals...as genuine, it turned out, as the catgut of our cheap badminton rackets...some copy cats!
The first winter at KGP was biting cold to someone like me who never knew what winter was. So, I bought a pair of cheap Chinese shoes that had pointed toes and made a sound like the proverbial skeleton dancing on a hot tin roof when I walked the corridors of the Physics Dept. There was no much-needed stealth any longer in my walk and they also were so hard that my tender skin got ruptured at many places. I had to gift them away to Chinta, the boy of our hostel, who spirited them away and got high for two whole days.
And I reverted to my chappals, braving the cold.
Till a couple of decades later when white and red Action Shoes appeared in the market. They were expensive but folks said that they are as soft as snow and I was tempted to buy a pair. Students giggled at my fashion statement but I didn't flinch. Till they almost landed me in the ditch. Those days I was riding my Bajaj Chetak scooter which had a foot-brake (fussbremse) that was right near my right foot (der fuss), a lousy design.
Now, the Action Shoes had laces as long as the antennae of cockroaches in KGP Hall kitchens. Even when I tied them up in the classic double-bow they had loops as long as bunny-ears. One day the right loop got caught in my Chetaks' brake pedal so badly that I couldn't lift my foot to apply the brake and landed in a roadside ditch trying to avoid manslaughter.
That ended my flirtation with fancy foot wear...once and for all.
========================================================================
Interviewer: Do you visit Church?
Bernard Shaw: Regularly
Interviewer: How often?
Bernard Shaw: Whenever I need a new pair of shoes
*******************************************************************************************************
None of us students in our Village School in Muthukur in the early 1950s ever had any footwear. One student, Raghu, the son of the newly arrived Doctor from Nellore (District HQ) and a very docile and decent chap was ragged so badly when he arrived in chappals that he preferred to do in Rome as Romans did...during the Games Period, one of his chappals was grabbed by the bully of the class and he was invited to take it back...only to find it thrown over his head to the next bully and the next and the next...kids can be cruel en masse.
But I recall a genuine saffron-clad Swamijee invited to our home for a lecture followed by simple grub arriving in wooden chappals that had just a toe-hold and nothing else. He left them outside our front door and me and my kid sisters who were playing outdoors had a competition walking them as far as we could without tripping and falling down...my youngest sister, all of 4, won the first prize...she dragged her feet without lifting them.
When I went to my MD Uncle's place to live under his roof to pursue my University Education, he looked at my bare feet and gave me Rs 10 to buy a pair of chappals...he was afraid of calumny...
That was the time when the Hawai Chappal Revolution was sweeping India. I could actually buy a pair with Rs 6 and saved Rs 4 as an emergency fund for riding on the City Bus # 10 whenever I missed the University Bus.
The problem with the Hawai Chappal was that its straps tended to come out of their holes and had to be pushed back in, which needed expertise. Most of the time we were stuck with one chappal and then we had to carry both in our bags alongside our text books like Worsnop & Flint (serves them right for writing such an expensive book). Ladies had an advantage since they had safety pins all over their body and used them as rivets...they didn't have pockets since they wore saris but they carried purses which held secret devices of all sorts...I happened to have a peek into one accidentally and it had a sheet containing readings for the notorious i-d Curve experiment.
When I started living in the campus of IIT KGP in 1965, they told me that only students were allowed to wear Hawai Chappals which they termed Bathroom Slippers. So, I had to go to the Bata Shop in Gole Bazaar and buy a costly pair of what they claimed were genuine leather chappals...as genuine, it turned out, as the catgut of our cheap badminton rackets...some copy cats!
The first winter at KGP was biting cold to someone like me who never knew what winter was. So, I bought a pair of cheap Chinese shoes that had pointed toes and made a sound like the proverbial skeleton dancing on a hot tin roof when I walked the corridors of the Physics Dept. There was no much-needed stealth any longer in my walk and they also were so hard that my tender skin got ruptured at many places. I had to gift them away to Chinta, the boy of our hostel, who spirited them away and got high for two whole days.
And I reverted to my chappals, braving the cold.
Till a couple of decades later when white and red Action Shoes appeared in the market. They were expensive but folks said that they are as soft as snow and I was tempted to buy a pair. Students giggled at my fashion statement but I didn't flinch. Till they almost landed me in the ditch. Those days I was riding my Bajaj Chetak scooter which had a foot-brake (fussbremse) that was right near my right foot (der fuss), a lousy design.
Now, the Action Shoes had laces as long as the antennae of cockroaches in KGP Hall kitchens. Even when I tied them up in the classic double-bow they had loops as long as bunny-ears. One day the right loop got caught in my Chetaks' brake pedal so badly that I couldn't lift my foot to apply the brake and landed in a roadside ditch trying to avoid manslaughter.
That ended my flirtation with fancy foot wear...once and for all.
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