KAHANI - LADIES CHAPPAL KI

Unlike many men, I love to go with women for their shopping. I help them choose or short list their outfits, and then finally say, this looks good on you. Shopping is done.

With experience I can vouch that ladies take more time to choose their footwear than their outfits or eyeliner. Any day, their rack would be choked with at least half a dozen pairs. Yet they always find a valid reason to buy a new pair. Their - or other than their – birthday, wedding, thread ceremony, mundan ceremony. If nothing else, they buy a new one because the present one, bought a few months back, looks old.

One can understand a lady waxing her legs for her second cousin’s grandchild’s fifth birthday (though she has plans to wear a saree, not micro mini). It is also acceptable if she buys a saree or gets a new blouse stitched for every occasion. Generally, the genuine reason for this is they can’t fit, even after removing a few stitches, into the blouse stitched a few months back.

But the time a lady spends to choose footwear is intriguing. She can move heaven and earth to get her footwear right. It is impossible to make out what kind of footwear she is shopping for. High/Low heels, small/big/thick/thin straps, flat heels, stilettos. Semi/fully covered, trendy but not gaudy and so on. She confidently tells the salesman “Give me size six”. But her toe protrudes out of size six. She asks for the ‘next size’. Next size will have a different design or it is too big or the heel bulges out. Though the salesman gets an opportunity to touch her feet with glee, while she tries all kinds of designs, he looks traumatised by the time she finalise one or leave without buying.

There are occasions though when a lady finds trendy footwear instantly. But within no time, her joy turns into disappointment. Her feet do not match the jazzy footwear. So a visit to parlour to get a pedicure done is imminent.

Looking at the dilemma ladies face, I feel, footwear makers should introduce mix and match designs. They can offer assortment of straps, heels (3,4,5,6 inches). Ladies can mix and match straps, heel, platform to design their own model. By the time they finish “shopping for bindis”, the footwear would be ready.

P.S. I am sure my wife would throw her new chappal at me after reading this. I am traumatized!!! Not because of her ‘hate missile’, but with the thought that it will entail another round of shopping for chappal.