Shoes I have walked in

I still clearly remember purchasing two pairs of Adidas shoes with my first pay-cheque. Not that my first salary was substantial, but that probably was the only time that Adidas ran a Flat 50% Off sale in Bangalore J

Of the two, the one I really liked was the one with a primarily black-grey background with reflector silver strips all over. In the nights, when any vehicle’s headlights hit the shoes, they looked like zebra-skin on my feet, and at that age (I was all of 20 yrs old, highly impressionable, and desperately trying to make an impression of being a ‘hep guy’) these shoes were ‘god-send’ for me. And the other pair, well they were a little simpler in comparison, a navy blue background interspersed with white stripes.  I well and truly loved both these pairs of shoes.

Back then I led quite an active lifestyle, with either basketball or cricket making it to my Saturday early morning schedule to which these shoes became a permanent fixture. Coupled with some other outstation trips which involved trekking in hills in Chikmaglur, some on and off jogging stints, some stints at the local gym, these shoes saw more than their fair share of wear and tear in their day.

After a while, corporate life caught me by the jugular, but these shoes didn’t lose their sheen or importance in my life. They were a regular fixture on all my weekend outings to restaurants or pubs and also followed me to various resorts at Coorg, Munnar, Goa and other local team offsite events organized by my first employer. Even after I quit my job and started pursuing my CAT coaching classes, these shoes adorned my unemployed, struggling feet.

They then came all the way to Indore with me and made numerous trips on the winding road of the hill, Hanuman Tekri on which the IIM Indore campus is located. All those midnight walks down to the gate, and back up the hill to the student hostels; these shoes were a constant companion whether I was in a good mood, bad mood, pensive mood, reflective mood or just plain and simple, drunk.

The first pair, the one with the reflective strips finally saw their demise after having walked an approximate 5 kms per day for 25 odd days in the sweltering coastal Tamilnadu summer of 2005 during my summer internship with a confectionary company. I was involved in a marketing project which involved me trudging the ‘markets’ of coastal Tamilnadu and these shoes stood me in good stead during all those long, sunny walks in that one month.

The other pair of shoes came all the way back to Bangalore when I finished my B Schooling and got back to the corporate groove of things. Once again, they were a regular fixture on my weekend outings and the occasional Fridays when I used to wear t-shirts, jeans and sneakers to office.

These shoes saw me getting married and shifting location to Hyderabad, and what’s more they also came with me across continents all the way to the US of A. They saw their first international airport outside India at Frankfurt where they walked with me for almost all of a kilometer and a half between the transit gates there. And that is when I guess they decided to give up on me.

I wonder if it was that long walk at Frankfurt International Airport that did it or whether it was their first sight of those lovely sneakers arranged on the racks at the Sunnyvale Walmart that did it, but finally, after 8 long years of being my constant companions, this pair of shoes decided that enough was enough and they just died down on me. I finally had to abandon them back in the US of A where my friend promptly picked them up and threw them in the trash, given that I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Even today, when I think back of all the experiences that I have had wearing those two pairs of shoes, there is just too much nostalgia involved for me.

Am sure all you readers have your own favorite pair(s) of shoes as I had with these two pairs. Go ahead and share your experiences in the comments sections and enthrall all of us with your experiences with footwear.

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This post has been written for Project 365 : A post a day where the intention is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided. Today’s prompt was to write about my favorite pair of shoes and where they had taken me.

Guest Post : Idiots’ guide to ladies footwear

Today my favorite Guest Author decides to tackle an issue which has piqued and continues to pique my interest all my married life, that of what the various variables are when women go shoe-shopping. And as is the norm with all his posts, his tongue-in-cheek humor and whimsical way of looking at life ensures that this post will be a laugh riot, at least with the readers that have a sense of humor.

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It was only when I noticed that our servant maid was wearing Dr.Scholl’s that I realized how important footwear is to the ladies. Of course, with the kind of money our servant maid makes, she can buy a pair every month. Gone are the days when shoe racks at home were for storage. Today, shoe racks are built for display.

Here are some pointers –

a. When ladies meet up, they discuss heels, flats, pumps and mules. These are not types of boys. These are types of footwear.

b. No one has just one. The only ladies I recall owning only one set of footwear or less were my daughters when they were babies, less than 6 months old. That time of course, they wore socks and mittens.

c. The average shoe store retailer will show 9 pairs before a lady makes up her mind. Don’t pity him for patiently dealing with your loved one for 1 hour. He actually has got it easy. You are going to deal with your loved one for a life time.

d. Every lady needs that extra pair of footwear. She hopes that like Cinderella, that one extra purchase will make a huge difference to her romance prospects.

e. The smart ladies try out footwear in the nearby shopping mall and then buy the same brands online at discounted prices from Jabong or Flipkart. That’s retail therapy for you.

f. The men buy footwear that they are comfortable in. The ladies buy footwear that they look good in.

g. After a tiring shopping expedition to Bata and Reliance Footprint, my wife exclaims that finding grooms for our daughters will be a lot easier than finding footwear that they are happy with. Both boys and footwear are similar. They are stamped all over by the ladies. Yet, they endure.

The elder one frets that her feet are too big. I explain to her that having Ranganathar paatham (big feet!) is considered very lucky. The younger one fancies Udayanidhi Stalin after watching ‘Idhu Kadhirvelan Kaadhal’. I don’t mind taking her to Mochi if she will get over her fancy.