Of Peace, Patch and Pride

He took the shoe from my hands, and observed it carefully. After a while, a little hurried, he extended one of a pair of sandals for me to put on the naked foot, and looked as sheepish as one could look without breaking into a smile or losing composure. I was not to stay barefeet.

One of my leather shoes has been torn from one side for about two months. It doesn't show so I wear it all the time, making it worse everyday. Dust and small pebbles get in and make walking long distances difficult. A large part of the shoe problem is in the way this shoe was designed. It was designed for beauty, with no thought for amenability to mending. It was not made for me. I believe in mending stuff and using things forever.  But they're comfortable, grown around my large six toed feet. Creased as if they have aged a thousand years with my soul in the last eighteen months.

All artisans take their art seriously. His art is mending shoes, and he is good at it. Madurai is a large city, and Anna Nagar is a large commercial part of it, but in this unnamed bylane the quiet is meditative.

He scratched his head slowly, fingering through the thick patch of overgrown hair. He stroked his overgrown beard, and made up his mind about how he will tackle this problem. As Sherlock would say, the game is afoot.

There is some magic in mending. I find it more attractive than creating new. He held the pointy end of a tool to the sole, and with a lot of effort penetrated it. (Mental note: find the name for this tool). And then he penetrated the leather with much ease; hooked the thick string onto the slit in the pointy end, from inside the shoe, pulled it; tying the string from outside in a complicated knot that matches the original design. The knot had looked simpler to me until I knew and the sole softer. After having figured out a game plan, it was going to be at most fifteen such stitches.

I looked around. This was his place. He wore a clean old shirt that was missing top three buttons and a clean striped lungi was wrapped around his waist. He looked undisturbed in his pose, as he sat on the pedestrian side-walk and many layers of jute bags.

Almost all cobblers I have known have a permanent spot for their work. As cobbler spots go, this unnamed artisan, on an unnamed bylane, has a sweet one. The neem tree casts a deep cool shade, the bylane is peaceful, the wall is conveniently missing a few bricks making alcoves in which sits the pantheon of the various gods that look over him.

Ganesh is in hardboard. This elephant headed, oversized child of Shiva, sits on top of the pile of shoes, that were either found or collected by the cobbler, for their parts. Or perhaps they were sent to be repaired and never recalled. Outlived their usefulness. Forgotten. The son of the god of the underdogs, sits on top of this pile of the forgotten and rejected, in all his golden glory.

The other male god is Muruga in paper. Sealed in a plastic bag, he sits in the wall a rung above Ganesh. Two on Muruga's right and one the top rung sit the devis, small but framed. Mothers rule this place.

At-most-fifteen stitches later, he cut the thread with a blade, and pushed the shoes towards me. I inspected the final affect. It looked good. I was happy with the work, and asked in my English-for-the-Tamil-speaking, "how much?"

He spoke in universal body language, using his hands, "anything you see suitable". I looked into my wallet, found the smallest change I had - a fifty rupee note - and extended it to him. He looked visibly angry. Breaking the hypothesis forming in my mind that he may be mute, he spoke English in a deep grandfatherly voice, "no change."

Here is an elderly person who has perhaps not earned thirty rupees in the day so far. He has mended my shoes saving me a lot of money on new. I thought about all the problems I may cause in the local equilibrium of the cobbler market in Madurai, if I paid him more than he expects.

I asked him to please keep it and started removing the sandals he had given me.

He startled me as he took the shoe from my hands wordlessly; and threw second of the pair of sandals in my direction, asking for the other shoe.

He looked a little upset, ripple'd and unequilibrium'd if you may, as he shined away both my shoes with polish and cream, to earn the rest of the fifty rupees.

The Expert

Why do humans need to be hailed as experts? Why do people want others to take for granted what they state (as a fact) and not question it?

Why, I may be guilty of a lot of personal flaws but such a weakness is not mine. Never was.

Of course there was one time, and I remember this very clearly even if it was many years ago, when I was ten or so and was talking to a boy two years my junior. Our homes were nearby, the boy and I, and we had the same auto rickshaw for going from school to home. For some reason the auto had not shown up that day and we were walking home.

Now the school we went to did not have a good supply of books and whatever we read was at home. Of course there were no public libraries. We Indians doesn't believe in entrusting just anyone with book. We worship knowledge in all forms. Even if there are libraries, such as charitable trusts or school libraries, they are a kind of book storage space where books are kept safe inside locked cupboards, from possible assault by undeserving adults or worse children. But I am digressing from the subject.



So as I was saying we had a large collection of tasteful children's literature at home. Hand picked and select literature in the form of um, comic books and graphic novels. Not only fighting and killing superhero ones but the knowledge enhancing Asterix and Tintin as well. Mad comics are great for improving sense of humor at an early age, and Archie's comics are a preparation for young-adulthood, for avoiding the mistakes teenagers can make. In short, I was well read and exposed and everyone in my class regarded me as a kind of expert on literature. Of course they were not wrong in doing so, even if I did not ever care for such a distinction.

So this boy. I had not spoken much with this boy before, even if we shared the same auto to school and home everyday, since I was many years his elder. So, when perchance we started talking I informed him about my expertise on literature. The boy was sufficiently impressed.

If stereotypes ever work, they did in this one instance. He was completely the 'type' with round glasses, round face, clenching a hand-kerchief and a body stance that felt he was ready to run away in case I tried to bully him. But even as a child I was against stereotypes and I ignored the cues, and went on describing what I had read and thus knew.

He had not heard of any of the books I had read, of course. So I went on to enlighten him for quite some time. At some point he also spoke and mentioned that he also likes reading. Being the gentle soul I am, I encouraged him to speak. He mentioned some books [which I don't remember since I had never heard of them, but I will make up some names for sake of continuity, as I always do] like Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. But he also mentioned some familiar names such as Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes.

[I felt a slight legwards tug that could dethrone me if I did not do something right then. So I did what I am very good at, I spun a yarn (we did not call it blogging then). My mind raced and reeled to recollect the tit-bits of data I may have come across. And within a few fractions of a second...]

Of course I had read the books he had read. In fact I had read many more books about the detective in question, than he knew existed [or were ever written for that matter] -
He is that detective that smokes pipe isn't he? ...and he has a friend, a doctor. Like Chacha Chowdhary and Sabu*. But the doctor is not strong and big like Sabu, who is from Jupiter of course... 

The boy looked at me silently, in awe I was assured.
And his pointed mustaches are so funny. And there was this case when something happens on a train and he has to solve it before the train reaches its destination... Yes a very nice character... I even know how he died. He is fighting with... and falls over this waterfall...

His silence at the end of my discourse sounded familiar to me. [Like a fanfare of bugle, assuring me of a complete victory in retaining my throne. I could command such expertise even when I had never laid an eye on any of the books in question. In fact I had never opened a book which did not have pictures of people with bubbles coming out of their mouths and other anatomical parts where things can come out of.]


I speak only completely objectively, as an experienced educator who has expertise and authority in this matter, when I say, that an eight year old should not be allowed to read books written for adults. It is shameful that his own parents encouraged and/or allowed him to read such books. I am completely and utterly against such shameful and careless parenting.

And they did not teach him any manners either.

He avoided looking into my eyes and spoke too softly to be respectful -
Agatha Christie was a woman, not the kind with pointed mustaches either. 
Of course anyone could confuse Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes. His supercilious behaviour was completely uncalled for.




* Indian comic book characters