Roadside Reboot

The shoeshine box: A wooden receptacle—the kind they pack mangoes into—with an attached leash. Every day, tiny hands fish out four essentials from the box to boot up your life: A small brush, a big brush, a muslin rag and a case of wax polish. Without them, there’d be no shine on any sole, ever.

The roving eye of my guru is always on the lookout for a catch. “Ask the man with the baby,” he instructs. It totally works. Wham! The box is before him. I take the rag and begin to dust the man’s shoes… oops. Wrong move, the rag comes at the end. But my guru is lenient. He hands me the small brush with a smile. I quickly take it with a nervous grin. ‘‘Don’t use both your hands,’’ comes another admonition. Rs 5 for the effort.

We are on our third customer. ‘‘You are using too much polish,’’ says the little man. ‘‘Sorry boss,’’ I reply. He doesn’t smile this time. ‘‘Theek hai, thoda kam kam lagao,’’ he whispers.

In four hours we’ve only spiffed up five people, including a Caucasian and a Japanese. Another hour’s passed. I hurt my index finger with the buckle of our sixth patron’s shoe. On the eighth one, I bruised my nose twice with the big brush (used very very swiftly to get the shine), there are needles in my toes, and my eyes are watering thanks to the vapours of the polish.

The little guru’s friends have come. They also want to be a part of our game. ‘‘Khel nahin ho raha hai, akhbaar mein chapega,’’ he tells them.

We have a chuckle over our ninth man. The chap’s hurried off with one trouser leg still rolled up. It’s the third time that’s happened. My Lilliputian guru gets a real kick out of watching them walk away, one up one down.

Another client arrives with two female friends in tow. The master simply can’t stop asking the younger girl, in black open-toed stilettos, if she wants a clean-up. I can see why. Her toe-ringed feet look fresh out of a warm pedicure. He pesters me to ask her in English, and then whispers, ‘‘Shirt se saaf kar doon sandal’’. We are obviously snubbed.

The sun is unrelenting now. The flagstones at Priya Cinema are baking. But while I’ve almost reached the end of the line, the little one’s only coming to life.

He’s vanished behind some lanes chasing after a spiky-haired, buck-toothed colleague. There are a bunch of them, all killing time. After all, in six hours, we found only nine willing to give into the grace of shining shoes.

The teacher swoops back in. I ask him about the ‘P’ tattooed on his right arm. ‘‘Parvin, my name is Parvinder.’’ He runs away again. I drag myself out of the crowded facade of the cinema complex. I want to crash in my shoes. Parvin appears again. ‘‘Where will I find you next,’’ I ask him. Always at Priya, he says. He doesn’t ask for a copy of the article. Does he even remember?

Sunday film goers are pouring out. Too many floaters and too much sportswear. Barely Rs 20 in hand, there are no more offerings for my barefoot shoe master.