Last
year, within six months I lost three pairs of new chappals (footwear)- one outside
a temple complex, one inside a marriage hall and one outside a Doctor`s
clinic. Having been `thrice bitten` I
have learnt my lessons. Today I carry an extra-old pair of chappals in my car
which I wear whenever I enter any public place where I am expected to leave
behind the footwear before entering the venue. If the distance between the
parked car and the venue is short I
leave them behind in the car and
walk barefoot to the venue.
It
is not uncommon in many of these venues to find your new pair of chappals missing and in its place an identical but old
worn out pair staring at you.
A
friend was reluctantly compelled to walk
away with someone else`s pair of chappals when he found his own missing outside
a temple in a village. ` What to do yaar, I heard that there were no footwear
shops in the village and it was so hot
in the afternoon that I shuddered at the thought of walking around barefoot,`
he said sheepishly. So much for his conscience!
I
remember an occasion when I was the guilty party. Let me explain. I was travelling
back from Trichy by Rockfort Express. I
normally get off only at Egmore, the final destination of the train. But that
day as the train was entering Mambalam station I had an impulse to get down so
that I could save some time reaching Adyar where I live. As I was
getting out of my chappals after reaching home, I realized that one of
the chappals was brand new- identical to
the old one I was wearing on the other foot. Obviously in my great hurry to get
down I had blindly worn the mismatched pair of chappals next to my seat. The
number of times I choked on my `saliva` (Porai) that morning made me realize that the gentleman who lost his brand new
chappal must be cursing me repeatedly. Thanks to my absent mindedness I had made two pairs of chappals; his as well as mine useless!
Then
there are people who are so possessive of their footwear, old or new , that
they discreetly pack the pair of
chappals in a bag and tuck it under their armpits as they walk into the sanctum
sanctorum of temples. You see, they don`t trust the guys who promise to look
after their pair of footwear for a small
fee. Reminding me of the old pre-security days, when villagers, who could not
afford to hire rooms, carried their small steel trunks containing their
belongings on their heads inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Balaji temple in Tirupathi causing a lot of inconvenience
to fellow devotees; especially those behind them whose view of the deity was
obstructed by the trunk.
I
have also come across anxious devotees, when visiting small street side
temples, who keep peeping out every time they come to the entrance, while going
around the sanctum sanctorum to ensure
that the footwear that they have left behind just outside the temple, is not
missing. They are more worried about their footwear than concentrating on the
deity.
One
solution to this problem can be to insure your expensive footwear from loss due
to theft, fire etc. Will insurance companies consider such an insurance policy
not only for foot wear but also other expensive items like mobile phones, wrist
watches, gold jewellery etc which we
have in our person when we go out? An
idea worth pondering over!
This article
has appeared in Adyar Times issue dt.29th April -5th
May,2018 under my column `Rajan`s Random Reflections`
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