चप्पल जूते

While strolling back home from regular morning walk, my Nike sneakers started at a shoe rush before a tiny temple gate. Few stray foot wears caught my attention. One looked abandoned and unwanted - poor grey chappal. Other two seemed to have eloped; one looked like shoddy Adidas footgear and the other, crimson Regal wedges. The chaos soon reached my …toe! Some rogue Woodland boot stepped on me. Argh. The scene looked more like a disorganized matrimony app where all colours, sizes, textures and shapes squabbled to pair up with their better half. Coincidently, it was also Maha Shivratri. Not just the pumps, mules and clogs, even the men’s footwear community rushed to find a “suitable” match.

A closer view would tell more entertaining tales. Crunched up in a corner were small Barbie ballerinas duly supervised and shielded from loafer Crocs by a pair of Kohlapuri. But Crocs being Crocs, they tried hard to hit on the “damsel in distress”. A small group of blingy juttis and mojaris swarmed in the middle, gossiping about Reebok scaling heights, and whether someone could broker an alliance between them. Just adjacent to them, a white PUMA, beaten and exhausted, lied upside down while its other half grappled for breath under Commando boots and Gola shoes. But the gossips went on and on. One on the other, the squeezing, crushing tested the survival of the toughest. It won’t be a surprise if tomorrow’s headlines say-
“A 2 month old pair of brown Monks suffocated to death in temple stampede”
“Search for 15 missing underway”
“Condition of 3 shoes critical; admitted immediately to the City Cobbler”  

Sitting little away was Dr. Sole who grimaced at the scene and longed for his good old days when alliances were made in heaven and not in a crazy open footwear community hall. He had seen a lot with many years of ripping apart and being stitched back to life. The modern day hook-up culture despised him, replacing slippers every other month. Cobblers don’t make sense to them.

Everyone was so much into their own hustle that a pram shoe, left unattended, wailed in fear. I hadn’t heard of Lost-Found case in a shoe circle before. The blue grandma shoe beside comforted him a bit. In contrast, a PK inspired fellow chained-locked his slippers to the temple grill. Insecurity at its peak! A dog whooshed past me with a pink chappal taking too seriously the dog marriage tradition. What zoophilia it is! Having a cake and eating it too. Anyway, he seemed too forthcoming for a date. Amidst this ho-hum, few neatly lined up Hush Puppies shoes and Relaxo moccasins scanned the crowd, frowning at the fish market-ish scene. Any kid would tell how out of place they felt like Cappuccino in a chai tapri. This South Delhi attitude gets on my nerves. There was one more of the same tribe who argued with Bata flats- “How dare you call my pearl studded flip-flops a chappal?!” Ah ha ha. These are the kind of outlandish people who call 10 Rupees “10 Bucks” with an accent. I imagined my mom holding it. Chappal or flip-flop, what’s in the name when it tastes the same! Anyway, it has taught me more than just the taste on face. Life in general is like wearing footwear. Brain and heart are like two chappals we pair- they never get along; when one moves ahead, the other goes behind. Either you stop which actually takes a rat race to stop, or become a Kangaroo. Latter is the obvious choice.