Finding these slippers at several locations in my house, in the past few months several perceptive observers have told me that two slippers are missing. Now what do you see? one right and one left? Does that make a pair - so why are all these people telling me that two slippers are missing and looking for another left and a right which never existed in the first place?
Ok this is the story. one of the blue straps broke and the shop didn't have another pair of blue straps so I got the beige. The seller said he would not fix the strap and I had to find a cobbler to do the same. Just a few months ago, in an effort to rid the footpaths of encroachment,the police had evacuated a number of unorganised business people in my neighbourhood which included the cobbler. So I decided to exercise my skills in removing the old one and fixing the new - only to realise that my scissors and screwdrivers were all wrong. (Ok, ok, we all know who blames his/her tools) Finally after about half an hour of hard work, I managed to fix the new strap on the one that had a broken strap. Since the other strap was as good as new, I just let it be deciding to use the spare one when the need arose. Did you know that there is no difference between left and right foot in the straps - you could use them for either! so it is all good, it is a win win. Except...
except that every now and then someone reports to me that 2 of the slippers are missing. Once , with a small child demanding "where is the other one?" and me showing the blue one and saying "this is the other one", the whole scene resembled a bizarre comedy scene in a Tamil film with a banana, and actors senthil and gaundarmani!
And I make people smile when they see this pair on my feet. They either think I am a little crazy ( which is true) or I am cheap ( which is not true) But until today, no one has looked at my feet when I am wearing them and said that either my left or my right foot is missing - at least not yet!
Such is our slavery to norms and conventions and traditions that even slight deviations are difficult to accept. For example, when I posted my 400th post 7 posts ago and told my son that it was a landmark post he vetoed it saying 400 is not a landmark, 500 is! Can you believe this ? How do you think 400 feels about it, being nice and round and divisible by 100 and yet not considered a landmark? Such discrimination and just because it can't protest being a number and all! So I decided to espouse the cause of these other suppressed numbers and I hereby declare this post, the 407th, a landmark post.
( I can hear the resounding applause. Thank you, thank you, thank you!). The next landmark will be 408!
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