NO SHOE HORNS AT BATA

Last week I stopped at the Bata show room near TTD office to buy a shoehorn and also laces . The guy at the counter told me Bata stores don’t stock shoehorns! That was news to me. They have socks, laces, shoe polish, brushes and every thing else except shoehorns.

I bought laces and was surprised to find they come in a wide variety of sizes. The sizes are indicated on the thin cardboard piece to which the laces were attached. For those who are really interested in knowing the sizes shoelaces come in , the shoelaces come in nine sizes from Size 2 to 9. The smallest size is Size 2 with the laces 45 cms long. The max size is not 9 but 7/8 and the laces are 200 cms long, perhaps for those who wear boots that come right up to the knees. I cannot think of anyone except firemen who wear those kind of shoes.

I asked at another shoe store in Chikkadpally and the guys there told me they had disposed of their plastic shoehorns a few days ago. I asked in another shop but they did not have them but an old salesman there told me I could find them in a small shop in an adjacent lane and pointed it out to me.

It was a small LIDCAP shop the sort in which the cobbler sits on the floor and fixes shoes and also sells straps of rubber slippers and so on. He had shoehorns, he told me and asked me if I wanted big ones or small ones that fit in a pocket. I asked if people kept them in pockets and I was astonished to learn some men keep them in their trouser pockets! I wondered who would carry a shoe horn in their pockets what with men’s pockets already bursting with various things like the wallet, a comb, hand kerchief, the mobile phone, iPod , keys and so on.

29-7-07

BONALU TIME
It is Bonalu time in Hyderabad and a few newspapers issued special marketing supplements in which cloth shops, jewelers and such have placed ads wishing “Happy Bonalu’ to the readers. I hope someone comes up with the bright idea of bringing out ‘Bonalu' Greeting Cards by next year. Given the commercialization of festivals such a thing is not impossible.



Maybe soon Hyderabadis will start sending Bonalu greeting cards to each other. Archies, are you listening?