By Ratna Manucha
Considering Boss Man commanded a battalion rather successfully and later took an entire contingent of officers and soldiers on a United Nations’ mission abroad, where he took tough, ethical and crucial decisions, he is surprisingly inept at making decisions that involve him personally.
This dilemma rears its ugly head each time he needs to replenish something in his wardrobe (such occasions are few and far between, let me tell you) like a new shirt or a pair of trousers or even a mundane pair of bathroom slippers.
So, the other day he decided his shoes were getting loose (of course they were, he had conveniently forgotten he wore three pairs of warm socks all of last winter – what could the poor shoes do, except s-t-r-e-t-c-h) and he needed a new pair. Off we went. At the shoe store, while the salesman was showing him the shoes, I stealthily wandered off to feast my eyes on shoes too, after all, why should I be far behind? If he was going to buy himself a new pair, I’m going to sneak in one pair for myself too!
I hadn’t wandered very far when I was called back with a curt, ‘Concentrate on what you have come for’.
Whaaaat???
You actually think I have come to help you select a pair of shoes?
A good one hour later, after trying out different sizes of the same pattern of shoe umpteen times, the manager (yes, he had joined the merry band too, by now), the salesperson and Boss Man (I was there too, as a bored, captive onlooker) came to the brilliant conclusion that the earlier pair was not loose, he had just been wearing a size bigger all these years! And now he needed to buy a size smaller. Wow! What genius detective work!
But Boss Man being Boss Man was not so easily convinced. He now wanted to go back home and check his other pairs of shoes.
‘Buy something!’ I hissed in utter exasperation. ‘You’ve wasted almost two hours here – take a decision’. But who’s listening?
We get back home.
The next morning, he decides rather than buy a new pair of shoes which he can actually do without, what he really needs is a new pair of bathroom slippers.
‘Coming?’ he asks airily.
I feign a headache and opt out, thinking I’d get some peace at home. Within half an hour the phone rings.
‘I’m not at Bata, I’m at Crocs and their bathroom slippers cost an arm and a leg. Why?’
What am I? A walking, talking encyclopedia?
‘You’re in the store’, I reply. ‘Ask them’.
I barely put the phone down when I get another call. ‘He’s talking something about plastic vs resin, which is going over my head. Can you talk to him and explain to me what he’s saying?’
What choice do I have? But I tune out while the salesman parrots out a monologue why Crocs are better than all other brands …I cut him short with one question,’ Can one have a hot water bath wearing them?’
‘Not hot water. They will shrink. But cold water, yes’.
Wow! Clap, clap.
‘Are you telling me that he needs to buy two pairs of bathroom slippers? One for wearing around the house and another to change into while going in for a bath?’ I asked the salesman incredulously.
Times are a changing. Stop the world and let me off…
I’ve heard of dressing up to go out but dressing down to go into the bathroom?
And all these years we have been taking the ubiquitous Bata slipper for granted. Who knew that chappals shrink in hot water? The poor Bata chappal has been taking hot water in its stride all these years without so much as a whimper.
‘He’s showing me two pairs. I can’t make out the difference.’
To buy or not to buy – that was the question hovering over his head, it was obvious. By now I’m at my wit’s end.
This from a man who has succinct views on the India–Pak and India- China relations, who has very clear views on how the country should be run, who can spout volumes on the budget and the economy but gets cold feet on deciding which pair of slippers to buy. It baffles me.
‘You should have come’, he said querulously.
‘Send me a picture,’ by now I feel I’m speaking to a petulant child.
The phone pings and I get two pictures of identical looking slippers.
‘One costs an arm and a leg, and the other is half price. I’m handing over the phone to the salesman. Will you ask him why this difference?’
Not again!
‘Do eenie meenie miney mo’, I snap and cut the call mid sentence.
So much for a morning of peace.
(Ratna Manucha is an academician, poet, columnist and author of fact and fiction. She lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place.)
