08 April 2006

You can tell a man by his shoes.

For some reason, I have no idea what to blog about. Its not that I don't have anything to say ... I do. I'm not sure if I want to say a lot of this here. My blog isn't really anon anymore. Which shouldn't matter, since I just have an average of 100 people visiting everyday. (I also have someone from turkey!) But it does.
Well, anyway, I didn't have much to do last evening, and I was bored. So I went out and bought shoes and shorts. Its a man's version of retail therapy. I took my 15 minutes, and I spent a fourth of my salary.

Anyway, I thought that you (the reader) should meet my shoes. I suddenly realised that I have a lot of them. There's sporty, cool, and character in them. Shoes, meet the readers, readers, shoes. Now judge me.


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These are my new Adidas shoes. They look like sherpa shoes. If you think that Sherpas don't wear expensive boots, think again. They wear expensive boots, they just buy them for cheap. These babies, I have never actually worn. So they have no history, no character. But they are quite comfortable. As I was buying them, the salesman kept saying things like, ``Sir, comfort insole''. ``Sir, bacteria resisitant.'' ``Sir, High quality leather''. Eventually i realised he was reading off the tag that came with the shoe.

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Now these babies, are a testament to Why. Nike. Sucks. These, when I bought them, were the most expensive shoes I owned. But it took just four months for them to wear out. The right shoe started fraying, and the hooks for the laces tore, and they don't tie well anymore. Later I realised that they began fraying because of the friction with the gear-shift on my bike. (if anyone can guess which bike I had from that info, 10 bucks. Or dinner if you're a girl)(if you already know, then you get nothing. Unless you're a girl, in which case, we can arrange dinner.)
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Say Hello. I know they look terrible. I know they're torn. I know they're not waterproof anymore. I know the suede has rotted at one place. I know the laces are frayed beyond repair. But these are my favourite shoes. They're slightly uncomfortable now, but I love them for the way i feel in them. These are Salomon hiking shoes. My mom bought me these for 3500 bucks, when Salomon was owned by Adidas. They've lasted me more than six years now. I've lost count. And i'm not about to get rid of them anytime soon. I will cry when i have to let them go. They've seen me through so much. Like the time me and some friends got stuck in a flash flood, and I had to run 4 km back to the village, in the pouring rain on the side of a hill. Or the hike in the himalays, where I slipped and fell, only to look up and see a Monal Pheasant (a very very rare bird). These shoes have stepped in pools of blood. They were therewhen I made friends with Maratha Light Infantry Jawans in Uri. They were there when boys my age in Dibrugarh told me why they're so afraid of the army. They were there when we let leeches feed of us in Nagarhole (its just the bad blood that goes, and its not painful). The last time I wore them, my left foot went ankle-deep into a drain in a Delhi Slum, while people around carried charred bodies out through narrow lanes. These are my shoes. These shoes are me.
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These are clima-cool running shoes. There's more ventilation in them than actual shoe. The only place I've actually gone for long runs in these are in Goa, where I realised all the ventilation doesn't do very well with sand. I wear them to the gym. The cool thing about these shoes is, when I walk into a shoe shop wearing them, all the salespeople turn to look at them. I get things like, ``Sir, those are Adidas Clima-cool model number whatever. Beautiful shoes.'' Really. I swear.
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These two pairs are my black shoes. One of them I just bought, cos i realised I didn't have any shoes of this Genre. They're clunky, and not me, but they go with jeans. The other one are the shoes I wear to job interviews. I don't really wear white socks with them (the socks pictured are my roomies). I just put the white socks there cos i used to wear very similar shoes with white socks in school :) (st. mary's boys, by the way). No history here.
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These floaters and chappals... well, the chappals I just wear at home, and get pissed of if anyone takes outside my house. The floaters are partners in crime with my salomons. Except they just accompany me everywhere, and i wear them when I'm lounging. Yes, I lounge. They're adidas too, and torn as hell too. The good thing about floaters is that you dont need to pack them. You cn just hook them to the outside of your backpack, and you're ready to go. You can even lounge at a railway station. The velcro on them isn't so velcro anymore, so they dont stay on very well, which makes them all the better for lounging.
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Those are my shoes. Now i have to go to work, and I think i'll wear my new shoes today. But before I leave you, here's a pic of shoes I would kill for. (sorry for the image-heavy post. But hey, its my blog)

Oakly Teeth

15 comments:

freespirit said...

And helloo to yu too :-)
Let's just say i was surfing the blogosphere in search of fresh meat to link...and u seemed delectable enough to read darlin'!

Anonymous said...

You ride a Thunderbird?
Dinner?

4wD said...

lyc ~ close, but the the word is `rode' unfortunately. The t-bird you're talking about wasn't out in my days! The trumph tbird, of course, was, but i couldn't own one. Hint : my Right shoe wore out ;)

Ekta said...

god!
Ur worst than girls!!
U seem to have more shoes than girls!:-))
Loved your new shoes though!;-)

The Marauder's Map said...

There's nothing more disgusting than used men's footwear. Shoo, shoo!

Rohini said...

I second that Ekta! 4wd, you are welcome to come shoe shopping with me any time...

bloggerhead said...

I think the shoes look nice off your feet than on:)I am assuming they are the kind that can bear the onslaught of not having one seamless identity. I like your old Nike shoes though-they look nice and worn out.
Cheerio!

Anonymous said...

The word cannot be 'rode'. Oh no! You can never grow out of a bike, you are simply not allowed to. Well, since am close, what do i get? Coffee or you?
lol!!!

Anonymous said...

really nice writing, but i do wish you wouldn't try so hard to make all your "throwaway" lines seem so effortless.
shiv

twip said...

@ ekta: he has more shoes than girls?
Heck no, woman!
You should probably see my shoe closet:P

@4WD: I miss the chappals and that blue/white color. dont get it here in the states.

:D

4wD said...

ekta ~ Women dedicate rooms to their shoes. My shoes just share mine :)

Marauder ~ they're NEW! :P :)

Rohini ~ if you buy me shoes, i'll come. Mens shoes cost a lot more than women's, i warn ya.

Blog ~ how do you know what they look like off me? I think the shoes, though, are giving in already!

Lycra ~ will coke do? :P

Shiv ~ whats a throwaway line? Wher eyou from ? I can take criticism pretty well... you ... you .. where's my crossbow now...

anonymeena ~ dude, its called the Anzo Mid : http://www.shoebuy.com/sb/s.jsp?Style=136991&Substyle=316009&cm_mmc=yahoo-feed-_-none-_-none-_-none

its damn comfy.

punk. Get the fluffy, soft ones. I like those too. :) so i do, thats doesn't say anything about me. They're just comfy. You can steal them of business class flights... or so ive been told by people that stole them for me.

The Marauder's Map said...

@ Ekta "U seem to have more shoes than girls!:-))"

Yes, that he definitely does. Has more shoes than he has girls, i.e.

Ok don't kill me. it just sort of leapt to the eye.

4wD said...

marauder ~ my friend... the ration is 1.5 : 9 :) Oh, and somewhere in my ancestry, i'm a Bagchi too. So now the least you can do is refrain from pointing out sad, but lost in the din, truths? :)

Unknown said...

a guy who likes shoes...
*pleased*

As far as sports shoes go, I exclusively buy adidas. ALWAYS.

Adichat21 said...

Is the bike you rode, an older version of enfield