My Sneakers Saga

My new pink Adidas sneakers got stolen from outside my house. I had kept them in the covered shoe rack outside the house. They were my most precious shoes. I loved them. The most comfortable pair I  ever possessed. I bought these shoes after hunting a lot in Hong Kong and trying a whole lot of brands. For me sports shoes have to be comfortable and look good. Most footwear follow one of the two criteria. Why is it always comfort versus good looks? I do not do any sports activity. My Yog class is very simple and we do not wear shoes for the class. I just use the sneakers when I have long walks to take. With children going to school in two different timings, walking as a form of exercise, is a luxury I cannot afford. Shoes are worn to go and buy vegetables from the market, walk back from the Dry Cleaners with a whole lot of laundry and newly washed curtains, carrying bag full of groceries. In these times, the sneakers protect my feet and give them a grip even on the semi wet pavements and slush on the roads. I am someone who wore sneakers with my Sarees as I walked to work and back. I had the sandals kept under my office desk which I used to quietly change into. When I was working, my car had a pair of sneakers always. Did not know when  felt like walking or giving comfort to my feet. 

The colours of Nike, Adidas and Reebok shoes available in India is atrocious especially in the women wear range. I mean I was stunned at the variety of sports shoes available in all brands in the women section in Hong Kong In India, the best of shops may have barely thirty pairs and may be not your size in the colour you want. They are priced really high for the common man and despite paying the high price, the style and the quality we get is substandard. I mean I am comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. These companies can cry themselves hoarse that it is the same stuff they sell in India and it is the handling of goods which is bad. But I do not believe them. I am not a shopper or a shopaholic but I can make out the difference in quality of Zara products in Mumbai and in Macau. These companies saying that Indians like this kind of crappy stuff so we send that to India will be a big lie. It is like go to a cosmetic store abroad, when they see an Indian, they only show you maroon lipsticks. Today we do not have a choice, it is these foreign brands training us what we should and which colour. We seem to have become a dump yard for these multi national brands. This is just commerce at play. Whoever has the wealth, has the right to buy and thereby demand. India has a huge potential and thats why these companies want to set up shop in India. It is mutually beneficial but we as the host country need to demand how we want the supply to be. The same Nivea, Whisper, Dove etc. all have different quality for India and other countries. Even Bata sells different stuff abroad and in India.

But the bottom line is that my shoes are stolen and I am convinced that I will not get such a lovely pair in India. To get a good pair, I will have to go abroad. I do not want to go to the same foreign destination where I went last year. I do not want to wait for a few months to take my next vacation or for the next summer holidays. I want a new pair of shoes which I love, now. I am ready to say loved and lost and I am ready to fall in love with a new pair. Wish life was this simple, is what some of my friends would say. I know when I lost my iPhone, I wrote tales praising it. Just want to tell you, I have a new Apple phone now and my old Moto G which works only on wifi as there is no sim card in it, is much faster. I use it for all my internet surfing. On the same home Wi-Fi, the two year old Moto G is faster than the best selling phone brand. Is it because I am used to it or more comfortable using it or not willing to learn the new phone well?  These are the existential questions of my life. Feel free to judge me and my consumerism. In your place, I would have done it easily.

Tried a different pair of shoes to walk to pick up the child. Managed to get two shoe bites on the back of my ankles on both my feet. At least my shoes are not partial. Could not go for my monthly pedicure with Jackie as can't imagine soaking my feet in warm soapy water,with shoe bites. Wanted to wear my silver payal (anklets) but can't wear. I am suddenly aware of my feet, my ankles and more importantly, the back part of my ankles. I swear, up until now, I never knew this body part existed. All my other shoes fade in comparison with my hot pink sneakers. One pair of shoes gone and so much hurt and feeling of betrayal. Yesterday while traveling in a cab, I saw lots of old shoes being sold on the roadside at Dadar station. Due to traffic, the cab was moving slow and I was actually scanning the pairs to see if my pink shoes were on sale. The cleaning girl and her sister who stole the shoes, have lost their job in the building and No, I did not complain. Whenever I give an old pair of footwear to my maids, they do not wear it. They are used to their particular roadside brands and are comfortable in those. My flat closed shoes is not their idea of shoes and any amount of explaining to them the comfort in the footwear, is of no use. The husband always tells me to take care of my feet as they support me to do all that I want to do the whole day. Good friends have advised me to buy shoes from India and not to keep good pairs of shoes outside the house. My telling them that for five years nothing has ever got stolen from the shoe rack outside, is of no use. When will I learn not to loose things? When will I learn to start using things as soon as I buy them? May be now I will not savour my shoes so much. May be I shall learn to be careless about my things. May be I will never learn anything. May be this is all about unlearning all that I know. May be this is about being okay with a pink pair lost. May be it is time to let go of my childish fantasies. May be this hot pink colour is not for me. May be the child in me which wanted to come out with these shoes, died an unnatural death. May be I tried to experiment and I lost. I have no one to blame and this loss seems so personal.