Much Ado about a little Shoe-Polishing….?
I had gone with a colleague today to Ritchie Street, a small
lane off Mount Road, famous for its shops selling a variety of electronic parts
at cut rates. My friend had wanted to purchase a Wifi-router and modem for his
home and as he caught me idling alone in the rest room he dragged me along with
him to go shopping. As we made our way back to the hospital after the purchase,
we were about to take the pedestrian subway which delves beneath Mount Road to
come up to the other side of the road (where his car was parked) when he
suddenly stopped and asked me “Do you mind?” before he thrust his shoe at a
shoe shine man sitting there beside the subway and gestured at the man to start
polishing his dusty shoes. Right beside the man was a boy seated with the same
set of shoe shine paraphernalia and my friend made an imperious gesture at the
boy (who had a close resemblance to the man- a son in the family trade perhaps?)
to start work on my shoes. I don’t know exactly what me do it but I stepped
back with a muttered apology and waved off the boy. I mean, everyone knows that
I am not a socialist that I have nothing against the working man making an
honest living off the sweat off his labor and all that-but I didn’t feel
comfortable with standing there like a lord and having a boy bend over my shoes
and polish them. I know shoe-polishing is and old and respected profession but
the mere thought of someone else polishing my shoes made me very, very
uncomfortable. “No one touches my shoes except me” I told only half-jokingly to
my colleague. And that’s the whole truth.
I have always been an exceptionally good polisher of my shoes
right from my earliest remembrances of my school days. I have this little
ritual I call Sunday polishing- when I lay out all my formal shoes on Sunday nights
and sit down to polish them up. Now everyone
knows that there are different kinds of shoe polishes available- the little wax
tins, the liquid polishes and the instant shiners. I have and use all of them
in their proper sequences- selecting and using them for effective results. The
one I trust most to give me a mirror finish is the basic wax polish (off a tin)
and that’s my starter. After cleaning the dust off with a duster I use a soft
cloth -an old discarded under-vest/banian cloth serves well here to apply the
wax coating evenly over all of the shoes surfaces. And then I start off with the
large, coarse brush (I own half a dozen shoe brushes – from the coarsest to the
finest grade in order) to polish up the wax coating. Gradually I move on to the finer polishing
with the softest bristled, smaller brushes and as the gleam of the polish starts
building up I go slower and slower and more careful to push with the grain and
not against it. And in a few minutes I have a mirror finish polish which will
last me a week if taken care properly. And every day morning before I leave for
work, I just need to remove the previous days dust coating, apply a little
liquid polish where needed and buff it up with an instant shiner and voila the
mirror finish is back restored.
And maybe that’s why I don’t get my shoes polished by
outsiders. I just don’t trust them to do it right. Imagine having a half dozen
wax polish tins at home- black, brown, tan, white, neutral etc – and all of
them selected brands only and a half dozen brushes carefully selected to help
get a mirror finish and a willingness to spend an hour every Sunday night
polishing up the shoes – black lace-ups, black loafers, brown lace-ups, brown
pull-ons etc in declining order of use and after all this to get it polished
somewhere else? Or maybe I just love the honest labor it takes to polish a
shoe, the hard work and the burn in the arm as the brush goes faster and faster
on the leather and the shoes starts shining more and more and taking on the glossy
mirror look I love to see. Or I just
love the smell of the wax and the leather and the knowledge that a thing of
beauty is taking shape in my hands. Or maybe it’s all of this and more. Who knows?
So tell me do you polish your shoes at home yourself? Do you
even like polishing shoes? Or do you think that I am far too obsessive over
something like shoes? Do tell.
You have a shining example to quote from if you ever would like to. During the American Civil war, Britain supported the Confederate South. And, when Abraham Lincoln invited the British Ambasssador to the White House to protest this, the Ambassador came to find the President shining his shoes. "Mr President, do you black your own shoes?" he asked Lincoln condescendingly. Lincoln's reply was for the ages, "Yes, I do, Mr Ambassador, whose shoes do you black?"
ReplyDeleteIf the great Abraham Lincoln could black his own shoes, then I don;t see why the rest of us shouldn't. :)
Wow...thats really fascinating to know Mehul.....yeah, if the great 'Abe can do it....why not lesser mortals? the thing is i just like doing my own stuff- its like a ritual- laying out all my clothes to wear the next day, polished shoes included- the night before itself so i dont waste much time in the mornings searching for everything and being late to office...might seem a little obsessive to some, but hey we all have our little quirks dont we?
DeleteI know what you mean, it's just not nice when a kid has to do such things... it doesn't seem right... your polish routine sounds OCD-ish, but in a good way.
ReplyDeletehmmm...i guess so Karen....i do have this obsession to stick to well defined routines...would you believe i like my eggs to be boiled strictly for 71/2mins?....i call it my Phileas Fogg routine...
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