Shoe woes!!

All my resistance to buying monsoon footwear landed me in a soup a few times in September. I ended up sitting through an entire day in wet sports shoes that made my skin itch horribly not to mention red rashes that made me throw away the shoes for good. So last Sunday upon my Mother's umpteenth persuasion to buy new shoes I landed up at a local shoe store to buy some workable comfortable monsoon footwear. I thought I was clear when I told the salesman to show me comfortable non-slid grip sole shoes or sandals when he kept showing me all the fancy strapped slick sandals that all the women were wearing and are popular in the market. Finally to get rid of all the glitter and strap, I chose ballerina flat sole shoes that I thought would be comfortable for walking and some running too.

Imagine my horror when I wore the shoes for some 8 hours straight and nearly killed my feet from swelling. These are the worst kind of shoes designed for women-kind, I wonder why women tend to harm themselves by wearing these Oh-so-pretty shoes which are nothing but a means to kill your feet. I kept cursing myself for buying these ballerinas also in a way reprimanding myself when I never chose something just because it was pretty and beautiful without considering its merits over comfort and feasibility. It was a lesson in what happens when you ignore your beliefs about something or maybe I am putting this shoe experience into a bit of self-criticising zone but yes, so necessary to experience having myself injured just so to abide by the truth. I remember having read an article a few years ago about shoes designed by Architects that were impossibly high-heeled and wedged. I thought then about the weird creative surge that Architects go through just to claim design proprietary over their ego.

Our fascination with fashion has overruled our sense for comfort. Louis Sullivan's Form Follows Function became a battle-cry for Modern Architects after 1930. Throughout my Architecture School training and education, I always tried my best to stick to function and realised in post-modern world, it rarely made any sense. We have disadvantaged ourselves by mulling over the gloss while chucking the actual treasure beneath it. It's funny how something as simple and common like footwear has inspired corporations and built brands of economy that squeeze labour from Vietnam and Thailand but reap their benefits in first world nations. I remember registering shock and disgust over someone's 10,000₹ (150$) branded shoes not long ago. Do we really deem it necessary to elevate our value by possessing riches and flaunting them? YES, is the answer. It's like knowing about climate change causes, discussing fervently about pollution and all the more just keep living crudely adding to our own misery. As I spoke about this unnecessary attention levied on shoes, their brands and exorbitant prices, I got a fine smack on head by my younger sister who moans having me judge the price of everything and know the value of nothing.

After finishing this post, I read an article in Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) about Dalit women in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh who defied an age old demeaning custom of taking off their footwear before passing by the houses of Upper Castes and carrying it on their heads or hands. On 15th August, India's 69th Independence Day, Dalit women groups in Barora gram panchayat in Bundlekhand wore their footwear and asserted their right to respect and breaking hierarchies set up by upper castes.

Please read the complete article here: Women break hierarchies, Walk to freedom