My wife’s friend presented her with a smartwatch. She proudly displayed logging 11500 steps yesterday. It was an insult not only to me but to the entire male gender. So I decided to break her record and quietly sneaked out of bed early in the morning, hurrying with my usual chores of filling the birdfeed jars. I stepped out, shutting the door silently behind me. Today, I shall prove it, ‘Hum Kisise Kam Nahi,’ I’m lesser than no one.
I must explain the walking shoe part a bit before moving on to the post; an attractive, top-of-the-line walking shoe pair, in fluorescent green colour that never fails to miss anyone’s attention. The shoe was a gift from my son, bought from abroad, I guess a decade ago or longer.
Lake is emptier than in a characteristic pre-Covid Sunday when the good morning and the Ram-Ram wishes would stretch the walking time. The roads inside were now empty, the splendour of the monsoon, brightening and polishing every leaf and every grass greener than ever. Every few seconds, I open the mobile phone (with difficulty, of course, as the face recognition App doesn’t work with my mask). The steps-meter seems to be moving slow despite my walking faster, but I doggedly hold on.
I’m not a great music guy, lesser so into rap music, but the drumbeat is unmissable, following me with my every step. I hurriedly open my phone, with the usual rigmarole. But, no, there is no change in the caller tune, nor any music on from the useless WhatsApp videos. Instead, the sound gets louder as I walk on with people looking at my pair of shoes, I guess, enviously.
I almost trip over as I stop abruptly and watch at my feet. To the horror of horrors, the entire sole has nearly come off. The shoes have shown their ageing, its colourful parts below the soles periodically wanting to part with the uppers. Much to the chagrin of my wife and children, I stuck the parts back with a new quick fix tube. I guess I have conducted a dozen such cosmetic surgeries until now. But the ripping of the entire sole was unthinkable.
I cannot suggest that my wife send the shoes to a repair shop unless I decide to shift to an ashram. I must discard it, but there is a more severe problem: I must reach home. I’m never short of ideas as I take out a spare facemask which I carry, for reasons I never know, but obediently following my better half’s dictum. I tie the mask to hold the sole and start limping towards the exit. The rap music follows me. The mask vehemently protested, ‘this was not assigned job,’ and struck work.
I sit on a bench, assessing a situation. I have given leeway and victory to my wife. Yet, the shoe lay in front of me, its tongue out, same as the passing of my pet a few years ago. These were my companion worldwide, at many forests, taking my load loyally with all the forbearance of a nobility. Here, it lay, dead and had to be consigned to the elements, which I must do with a heavy heart.
I WhatsApp the image to my family, and soon the diatribe starts, as expected, both from my wife and my daughter living abroad. “You have many shoes, but you will walk only with this despite our saying so.” The timing was not the best to engage in an argument. Later I will try to reason and explain my emotional attachment to the gentle pair.
I leave them in the dustbin and walk barefoot to the gate. People were looking at my feet with interest. My wife, and her morning walk friends, the T.K. couple, wait to pick me up and drop me home.
Seated, I open the App to see that I have logged 5500 steps, the last 200 or so without my shoes but shorter than my wife’s 11500!
R.I.P., my companion for a decade or more!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
