Brown Blistering Barnacles!!! The Case of Changed Sandal.

 

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!!!