I wanted to write about something lighter and something fun, something very different from what I have written before. With this thought in mind, I was going about my daily chores, work and life in general. I wanted the topic to come to be organically, while I was deliberately looking for it. It eluded me, I couldn’t find it. I thought and thought and I thought some more. 

Then yesterday, out of the blue It came to me. It came to me not because of something I thought or read or watched. It came to be because I saw, I observed. 

Now the question in your mind must be, what is it that I saw, what is it that I so keenly observed!

Well, I saw my feet. I saw my feet and I looked at them.

Like, really looked at them. I observed them. It hit me then for the first time ever in my entire life so far about how massively huge and gigantic my feet are!!

Now..now, don’t dismiss this as ‘what’s so great about having big feet’ or ‘that’s no big deal’. 

The thing is that my feet have always been a highlight of my life. Since school time, whenever we walked into a Bata store to buy the school prescribed black leather shoes, the store-wala kaka used to look at my feet, gulp in shock at the sight of my huge feet and then politely inform my father that ‘sorry, we don’t have her size for these shoes’. It would take us a minimum of 3 or 4 store hunts to find the shoes in my size!

Soon, school-shoes days were over and like any other college teen, I aspired to wear fancy footwear that matched my clothes in color and try different styles. Did I find some? Did I have a normal dress up for college teen-fantacy? Well, absolutely NO !!

It was as if the footwear Gods were somehow wronged by me and seemed quite  upset with me and were ensuring that my poor feet only got the most basic and at times the ugliest footwear in the entire store!

I was screaming for a footwear intervention and my case required some serious divine intervention – nothing less would have worked! 

Now let me put things into perspective for you. My feet measure UK size 8.

Yes, you read that right. Don’t believe me? Go back to the start of the para and read it again! What you read is absolutely true!! 

In normal people’s life that is a guy’s foot size for whom there is no dearth of footwear options available nor are they ridiculed for their large feet. They don’t ever hear family members or even strangers whisper a prayer to the almighty to have some mercy on this large footed soul.

To add to the misery my feet are not only just huge, they are also broad, I have huge toes and there is not an ounce of daintiness in them from any angle! One has to look at them and then one can understand why all those people around me whispered prayers for me and my feet especially.

There were jokes in my house where my mom thought she should have tied up my feet like they do in some cultures, so as to put a stop to the feet that wouldn’t stop growing in size! 

With feet like mine it is only to be expected that I have a challenging feet-life for life! 

Let’s move on and look at some good times.

After a few years of sheer despondency, the shoe fairy was smiling on me and I found myself visiting Agra to be with my Papa. He took us to shoe manufacturers who made the best shoes I’d seen! The best part was that for the first time ever, I had all these pretty footwear in my size! I felt like a kid in a candy store. I still remember those shoes vividly to this day. That was a rare treat my feet have ever had!!

Since then I have learnt and honed the craft of shoe hunting. I have a neat little list of shoe stores that house a decent number of footwear in my size. And, before you start thinking that my shoe-life is all sorted, let me enlighten you what I mean by ‘decent number’. In my world, a decent number means 7-8 options ONLY.

So, now I walk into only these select stores and look at my options. No more walking into random brands and seeing shocked faces of the store staff and no more disappointments and heartache. 

My large feet have carried me so far and with so much strength, power and energy. They keep me grounded and offer relentless support. I love my feet! So who cares that I can’t find a shoe beautiful enough for them!