Today I was scrolling through my footwear collection. To check if I had anything that would go with one of my dresses. I have a full almirah of shoes, sandals and slippers. Most of the ones I was seeing, I didn’t remember possessing them. Finally, I found one pair of heels, worn out by time and not use. I took them out, cleaned them a bit, tried them on. They did fit well. Just needed a bit of touch up! And so, they would go to the cobbler for a makeover.
My cobbler sits outside the park in our locality, under a tree. I usually go to get my badminton kit repaired from him whenever its zip comes off. Which happened almost every week. Till I decided not to overload it with all the sports equipment I had.
Today, after a long time, I was going to give our cobbler bhaiya some footwear to repair and not my sports kit. This was the first time I was going to ask him to make my old heels new.
Waise to anyone who can repair stuff has my respect. For his skill. To pump life into old things which otherwise would end up in the waste pile.
When I came back home after getting my heels repaired, my mom off hand mentioned that the cobbler is so popular and in demand that he would earn 2000 bucks per day. Which is more than the average salary anyone doing a job earns today. 50k per month is the average monthly salary of educated folks.
I suddenly saw equality in our middle class society.
Then my mother continued – He is hardworking. He sits under that tree on the roadside the whole day.
Ohh.. There is no equality. We both might earn around the same salary but I sit in air conditioners the whole day with all modern amenities to my disposal. Whereas his everyday life looks like working in the scorching hot summer on the roadside. Which I cannot even imagine standing in for a few minutes.
My mother mentioned next -You know, he cannot walk properly. He has polio. I recalled having polio drops when I was young. Maybe he didn’t get them.
Even if God is unfair to make some people rich and some poor, he should at least not make some people less fortunate by making them lack health.
Now the cobbler has even more respect. Life has been unfair on him. Like so many people. But he is overcoming it every day. Had he been born in a more privileged family, he would have been better off. Had he been as hardworking as he is and had the same opportunities that I had, no one knows where he could have been.
And then I look at myself. I cannot help but feel sorry and proud for the cobbler. Grateful for this insight and perspective and also for being more privileged.
If nothing else, I could gift him a chargeable table fan or cooler. There is a small hotel on the opposite side of the road. Probably I could even talk them into giving him some space to sit inside it. And also write a letter to the government making a proposal to give these skilled folks moveable truck kind of shops. Like vanity vans.
PS - The point to be noted here is the kind of conversations you can have! Or when you have a mother like mine.
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