To my shoemaker

Strange how things are now compared to when I was young. Growing up in Nepal and seeing the United States as only the shiny clean place in the post cards. Then there came television, and still it was this clean place with tall buildings. Not the same when the cab we took from the airport drove through 125^th street (Harlem). This was before Bill Clinton moved his office there, before all the economic development.

Nepal when I was small was different. My country, the way I saw through those innocent eyes. Not a care of social and economic discrimination or ethnic discrimination.

New York, city full of stores and big shopping areas. From SoHo, NoHo and Chinatown to the midtown crowd and tourist. Here I am free to purchase what I want with the money I have. Strangely, those who don’t have money, purchase what they want with the money they don’t have.

Here I am in NYC, twelve years away from where I was born. Shopping for new shoes. Here I am in a crowd, a walking number that the government identifies me by. Purchasing something through plastic which has the numbers that my bank identifies me by. When I want the shoes on the shelf, I ask for the model number. Once paid for the shoes, I get is a “Thank You” with a smile; granted the sales person is in a good mood; and my receipt. Never to see the person again. Never to say hi, hello, or how are you.

Every Year I got my shoes made by the shoe makers. My grandfather would take me over to the area of the town where all the shoe makers lived. They would measure my feet, every year they would measure it because I kept getting bigger and bigger, and gave us a date when it would be finished by. If my grandfather thought that it was too long then he would ask for an earlier time. No care for the style. There were none. It was a school shoes. Well actually I wore it everywhere and I didn’t buy sneakers till I was about 7 or 8 years old.

Now I go buy my shoes, in Macy’s, Foot Locker, Sketchers and all the big brands. Have shelves upon shelves of designs to choose from. Colours to pick, brand to pick, look of the shoes to pick, fell of the shoes. I walk wearing the shoes down the street admiring the newness of it, cursing at it if it hurt my feet. No a care about the shoes. Just how I feel.

Yet all this time, I never got a chance to thank my shoemaker. I never knew his name. I was socially restricted to invite him over for tea. He made the shoes that have lasted in my memory all this time. Not that they were any better than all the brands here in the US, but they were made by him. Not that I still remember his face but I knew that there was a person making my shoes and he put all his skills and care into making it. I knew that he would make it the way I wanted it.

I went back to that area few years back in Nepal. I disliked the town when I got there. I love the people there, yet they all had moved away to the western housing. All mixed in between the beautiful Nepali houses. I am not complaining on the western aspect of it, I am complaining at the impracticality of it. Not to our weather, our comfort and our cultural values. Just to show that I have more money than you.

Then I went over to the shoemaker area. Just to walk by, I didn’t go looking for the shoemaker. I don’t remember how he looked or even if he is still alive. I just wanted to walk by, and there it was. The place I knew. Unchanged. The buildings, the people. Yet the sadness is that our culture is preserved through poverty and segregation of our people. The shoemakers were still there because they were not allowed to move up. If only people moved up and still held on to what is ours.

The shoemaker kept his ways, kept his area looking beautiful, kept it Nepali, kept it because of poverty and social segregation.

So here is to all the hardworking people who make our shoes. To that special shoemaker who made my shoes.

Thank You.