Much Ado About Shoes

Of late, my shoes or footwear in general have been making me think a lot. Not that I didn’t think before. What I mean is that they make me think a lot about them. It was very recently that I noticed that I have some strange abilities or inabilities when it comes to footwear or my style of wearing(no pun intended) or removing them. When I sat thinking about it, I realised that this strange behavioural pattern can be traced back to the time when I started wearing shoes.

I am told (actually I can remember myself) that as a neophyte shoe-wearer, I had an inability to distinguish between the left and the right shoe ( or maybe the left and the right foot, now that I think of it). I know this is normal for toddlers; it’s the elders who help them wear shoes. But I am talking of a time when I was much beyond a toddler.

I remember that even at the age of 7, it was my ritual after wearing shoes to present my feet (with the rest of my body, of course) to any of the elders in the family with the question “thetto sariyo?” which translates to “wrong or right?”. This former handicap of mine is so famous in the family that even today, some aunts and uncles of mine come to me with this question, after wearing shoes. But they are only pulling my leg. They don’t suffer from this symptom, else I would have gladly attributed my inadequacy to some genetic disorder unheard of….maybe,..something  like lymphosarcoma of the feet !!!!

This, among the other footwear disorders of mine, has been eating my head, especially so, when I see kids 3-4 years of age very efficiently wearing the right shoe on the right foot (pun intended) and lacing them too… God!!! How I envy them!!

Finally, I decided to find out more about this problem and as a first step, decided to ask the New-Age –Know-All, Mr.Google. In my preliminary studies, I discovered that the idea of separate right shoe and left shoe was thought of only 2 centuries back( as recent as that).Until then all were like me. I was only taking more time to get adjusted to the new technology of separate left and right shoes. And recently, I purchased a pair of “straight” shoes- the ones which can be worn on any foot regardless of left or right.                            Wow!!! Who said goodwill is dead!!!

Anyway, that was a childhood disease which I have more or less overcome(I guess, one can ignore the singular similar incidents that occur even now, since old habits die hard).

The current problems are more complex and still remain unsolved.  I have noticed that while putting on shoes, as a rule, I have to always wear the left one first. This condition is so acute, to the extent that, if by chance, I start putting on the right shoe first, I remove it to wear the left one. Why this leftist mentality, even after leaving Keralam? The interesting fact is that all other kinds of footwear are exempted from this “left side first rule”.

Even more thought-provoking is the manner in which I remove shoes whether it is at the shoe-rack or at the door or at the foot of the bed. I have observed that I always manage to align them in an antiparallel orientation!!!...that too without any conscious effort.

This, of course, guarantees the cancellation of any magnetic field, electric field or spin associated to my sandals. But several other questions arise.

I have heard that ghosts leave footprints (though their feet don’t touch the ground) in a direction opposite to the direction of their journey. On correlating these facts, I cannot but wonder: Am I a semi-ghost? Or Am I a Vampire?

So troubled, am I that I at times feel my shoes are looking and grinning at me driving me on trips of introspection, retrospection, circumspection and the likes.

 I am not sure if you realise the gravity of my situation. You would, if you were in my shoes!!!