I did not fully understand this term when I was young. We heard it often when we were growing up and it always brought to mind a single shoe, suspended by its laces in mid-air while the five of us and sundry animals and birds hung on, dreading the prospect of those laces giving way at any moment to send us all crashing down on some rocks far below us. It couldn’t be that, we told ourselves. That was way too scary a scenario and our life was way too secure for us to imagine such an eventuality.
So, maybe it had more to do with shoes than with shoe laces, and we crept into the “box room” where Father had his shoes neatly lined up: uniform shoes, brilliantly polished and reflecting our curious faces; “dress” shoes, almost as smart but not with that aura the uniform shoes carried; and garden shoes that were in reality either uniform shoes or dress shoes that had served their purpose many years ago and were now retired — and re-soled — and were being used until they disintegrated. That’s it.
Since there were no answers to the term “shoestring” among Father’s things, we burrowed under the shelf next to the dressing table to see whether Mother’s shoes had something to say to us. But no, there was nothing here either, just two pairs at any one time — one for parties and one for ordinary outings — and that was all.
Obviously, therefore, shoes did not have anything to do with our parents’ budget — and in time, when we landed our first jobs and tried to live within a budget, shoes had very little part in it.
But then I met someone who brought new meaning in my life — and gave a whole new meaning to the term “shoestring budget” by introducing me to one of the many ways in which he kept his financial status almost permanently in the red: his shoes.
No clue
Of course, at first I had no clue that he had this “thing” about shoes. When he came calling, he was either in black shoes or brown shoes — and anyway, who cared about his shoes when the entire package was so appealing?
It was only much later, when there was no going back, that I realised that I had missed quite a lot while drowning in his eyes … because he had all types of black and brown shoes: brogues, boots, slip-ons, loafers, Oxfords, hush puppies, tennis shoes, sneakers, Chelsea boots, the list goes on and on. What’s more, there were many, many shades of black and brown and several textures to those shoes as well. There was normal leather and patent leather, suede and canvas and there was a wide range of colours: tan, beige, dark brown, burnished brown …
It was too difficult to keep up with — and it was also difficult for us to splurge on anything because as soon as a little money showed up somewhere, a certain someone was off to the shoe shop to indulge himself, leaving the rest of the family to manage on what was left after his feet were comfortably enclosed in a new pair of shoes.
Of course, like everything else, there was a plus side to it.
It was never difficult to come up with birthday gifts or anniversary gifts or gifts for any festivals. Shoes said it all, and thus, while we managed on that shoestring budget thanks to him, he had shoes coming at him from all sides, allowing him to improvise with a local shoe-related idiom, joote padte hai (I get shoes, or insults, hurled at me), in his usual appealing fashion while his sympathisers glared at me accusingly as if I were ill-treating him!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
