My Brown Patented Shoes!

Today lights went off at 7 a.m. Got up did fifteen minutes of yoga, shaved and bathed in the dark, couldn't see what I was going to wear, so, got mismatched clothes on - peach green cotton shirt and blue trousers. But what got me excited was the idea of wearing my new Bata patented leather shoes bought on Friday for Rs 2000, Rs 1999, to be exact.

I guess, they have this Indian aversion for round figures (except of the feminine variety!) and it is always Rs 2001 or Rs 1999. Rs 2000 is like a bad omen. I think I am an eyesore around the office in my mismatched peach green and blue trousers. But I check my shoes, oh, they just shine.

I guess there is no dress code in outsourcing companies. If there is, then it is universally ignored. But I stick to my self-created dress rules. Our software development guys come in crumpled, loud-checked shirts, and dusty and torn loafers. Those guys don't know, and don't even wish to know about power dressing. I can't help them.

I remember the words of Shashi Kapoor which is still emblazoned in my mind after all these years, "Dress well, and doors will open for you." And Shashi Kapoor was the ideal male metrosexual even before the term was coined. Women would faint in theatres showing his movies!

Bata shoes are something I indulge because my last pair of Bata shoes lasted me two years, and was in a bad state. The sole had a hole in it, and the side was beginning to tear. This one is Hush Puppies and is made of patented leather, or, so the salesman told me. "This is specially crafted for people who wear shoes the whole day, and need that extra comfort," the salesman added.

Mmmmmmm (that's her online identity), an online friend, says that women always look at man's shoes. I guess she's right. They do. I always polish my shoes, and as a rule, don't like dirty, dust-caked shoes. It shows a sloppy attitude.

Ahem.

Mmmmmm says, "A man would wear the best of clothes, and give no thought to how bad his shoes look." How very true! Shows man's Male Chauvinism. But are our roads, sidewalks, public places made for patented leather shoes? Most of it is stones, large aggregate, garbage, and spit.  I found myself muttering, "Please don't step on my shoes, for heaven's sake," when I was getting down at Kurla today. I am that paranoid about my new shoes.

But I know they will do it the first time, and the clumsy, bulky guy with a big plastic suitcase did that immediately, as if sensing my thoughts. I gave him the dirtiest look I have ever given anyone in my forty-eight years. And imagine, after this, as I got down from the train at Kurla I stepped into a gob of green, gooey, spit.

Yeeeecccchhh! I wanted to scream. But that isn't very appropriate on a Monday morning on the way to work, spoils the entire day. I rub and rub the soles against the concrete to rid me of the ugly mess sticking to my feet, and feel so sorry for my shoes.

When I narrate this to a friend in the office, he smirks. After all these software developer guys are crude and rough, these geeks, they won't understand. But this one forms complete sentences and is so bookish, he looks like an open book with the pages resembling his unruly, stand-on-end, moppy hair.

"How do you like my shoes?" I ask him hoping for a compliment.

"How much do they cost?"

"Rs. 1999," I feel a bit triumphant.

"Why such expensive shoes? Shoes are meant to be worn on the feet, aren't they?" Typical Hindi-film dialogue, "Jootey kitni bhi mehengi ho, woh pairon par hi pehna jata hai." Sorry, my Hindi isn't perfect.

"Is that why you are wearing those tattered shoes of yours?"

"What else? Why waste money? This pair is five years old. I only change my shoes once in five to six years. Shoes are after all shoes."

Mmmmmm, here's the guy you are looking for, give him a piece of your mind will you? This specimen of Male Chauvinism. I guess he is also the type who would buy cheap quality undergarments and spend the whole day adjusting his crotch.