It was a perfect Monsoon
Sunday morning with continuous down-pouring and as usual our society dog, Doosra
(I call him by that name as he spends his day at our second floor) was lazily
sleeping outside our door, perhaps inhaling the smell of the delicious breakfast,
getting prepared in my kitchen.
My usual morning chore was to get
the daily dose of the headlines from the newspaper, when I decided that it was
the day, I am ought to complete a long pending task - cleaning the shoe rack. Thanks
to the lock down, hardly any shoes were of use except one daily wear Sandal
(chappal). Post my breakfast of, Aah!!! Some delicious Paratha with Egg –
Potato special Tarkari (Dry Curry), and a cup of coffee, it was now time for
some action. I opened the shoe rack and
slowly started dusting and arranging, and being carefully observed by Doosra,
who in fact callously sat and enjoyed seeing me go through all this hardship, keeping
a cautious distance from the dust.
Anyway, to my relief the rack
was done, clean and clear, shoes shining. Finally, the pending stuff was now
complete. I was about to go for a bath when my eyes suddenly caught on an astonishing
sight. To my utter shock I noticed that the left pair of my sandals (the
regular wear one) looks different in the sense that its exactly identical to
the right pair with the logo, design even the size intact but the colour. God
knows how, the left pair has turned a darker BROWN while the right pair is
still of the pastel shade of skin and I was damn sure it cannot be mine; it
wasn’t mine of course.
Now, had it been the second
half of the day, I could have still justified a reason for my delusion (ahem!
the weather definitely was promising for a peg or two but I was behaving myself).
Poor me, this was some bizarre coincident! Seems, the saga of the conspiracy of
my missing footwear continues.
It was one fine evening a few
years back, after wrapping up my days’ work at Malad, I decided to seek blessings
of the famous Lord Icchapurti Hanuman Ji. The temple was nearby only, just a
few blocks away. So, I went inside, apprehensively slipping away my favourite
shoes at the designated spot. Let me say, I am a bit picky about my footwear (everything
actually, and I feel a lot pain to part way from them). For the past 10 years I
had been accustomed to the comfort of a particular brand, which is a bit
expensive but worth the money. A man was sitting nearby with a blank face,
staring at everyone including me, as if he was in a trance. Trying to dismiss
all the ominous warnings playing inside my mind with certainty that I have
placed my shoes at the safest corner (according to me), I, even turned quite a
few times to check on my shoes and was relieved to find them untouched. But by
the time I returned, my shoes were gone and so was the man. And then the flower
vendor showed me the WARNING NOTICE hanging on the gate, ‘Be careful of footwear
as the Temple Management is not responsible for missing footwear’.
I was irritated and sad and
moreover I will have to return all the way home either barefoot or buy a new
pair.
Adding to my misery, my friend
(whom I called up to share my pain) concluded the whole mishap to be rather a
divine intervention, having my shoes being stolen from a religious place,
indicating Good fortune was imminent.
Well, the only divine thing
happened that I could remember was, I had to shed some bucks unnecessarily to
get a new pair of shoes from a nearby store, which was obviously neither my brand
nor my choice.
Coming back to my current
misery, this time, my sandal was replaced from none other than my very own
home, that too during the lockdown period when visitors were not even coming. I
was determined to solve the mystery behind my misery this time. So, like ‘Chase
the Virus’ agenda, I started ‘contact tracing’ in my mind.
Well, I had gone to the market
yesterday. But of course, I didn’t slip the
left sandal out of my feet and exchanged with a stranger on the road, neither
did I enter any sanctuary to get it misplaced with the exact same one with a
different colour.
A divine intervention indeed again,
I felt for sure, when suddenly I recalled of the two engineers who had visited my
place a day before to repair my internet connection. Is it one of the guys, who
by mistake slipped into one of my pairs, leaving his behind? Both me and Ananya
were sure that the goof up happened by one of them only, though it was weird
that he had exactly identical pair like mine but the colour. Happy and
confident with my deduction, I immediately called up one of them to find out if
that’s the case. But no, not at all. Alas, again, another missing footwear, ‘Blistering
Barnacles’!
But wait, that was not the end
of my ordeal!
After three days, I was
supposed to go out for some reason when to my surprise, I found my good old
pair was there! It was puzzling... shocking... how was it even possible?
Well, after a few moments of blankness,
a thought suddenly struck me and well yeah, I solved the case instantly. On
Saturday, I had gone to the market and somehow the left pair of my sandal got
wet. I didn’t notice that. The soft velvety texture turned dark due to water and
it was not dry by next day, thus reflecting a BROWN colour. And thus, the whole
confusion of the misplaced sandal and the reason of my silly agony. Now, after three days, the sandal was
completely dry and to my delight had gone back to its usual colour. Eureka!!!
Thank God!!! I had not thrown them
away immediately!!!
