Sometimes a pair of shoes can change your life.
Shoes and me do not usually get on very well. I prefer to be bare footed mostly, the sole of my being connecting with Mother Earth at every opportunity. But there are times that shoes have become for me at least a necessary evil.
They bit and chewed my feet into meaty messes, gave me blisters and god knows how many toe nails I have lost at the altar of fashion.
Last year in Amsterdam I bought a pair of boots in the way that I usually buy shoes. See something I like and ask for my size already resigning myself to the blisters that i would have called wearing the shoes in.
My friend suggested I try the next size up.
The result was instant! They fit like a glove, hugged me in all the right places and I knew I could walk a mile in these babies.
They also make a nice assertive clicking sound as you walk which I like, Its not a prissy high heeled kind of click but a authoritative one, one that says don’t mess with these boots.
Of course I paid a fortune for them but every Euro has turned out to be a subversive investment in India.
Waiting for a friend the other day in the Rajasthan city of Jodhpur, I took the time to have my boots polished.
The guy who polished the boots was well impressed by their quality and asked me where I bought them, how much they cost, a crowd gathered around to estimate the worth of my boots.
I am terrible at numbers and plucked an amount out of the sky that mean ‘An Awful Lot’, they nodded their heads approvingly. If you have the money the good shoes is an investment the Indians understand.
Within nano seconds of meeting someone, the average Indian will have summed up your nett worth by looking from your shoes to your face. If you wear good shoes they you start well ahead of the average flip flop wearer, or GOD FORBID those Crocs. Good shoes earn respect and a little bit of fear in India and as a solo woman on the road thats always good to know.
As he gave my boots back, the guy said to me
“You were here three weeks ago but you weren’t wearing these boots.”
He was right, I was there but I was wearing sneakers.