How often do you really look at a man's shoes?
Sure I lived in sunny Southern California, but life is not quite Sunset Boulevard or Rodeo Drive or Malibu In fact, concurrently, I am Driver Nuru, I am Abdul er Maa, I am Baburchi Bhai, I am Bokul Ayah…And believe me, I have learned the hard way to respect them tremendously. The only reprieve for a seemingly California Dreamin' jet setter, is really nothing more than the mundane, routine WMD—Weekend's Mandatory Dinner. And it's the same food, the same people, the same conversations, the same Bollywood songs blaring on an oversized TV but just a different venue. Oh, and also the same routine where the wife concentrates on head-to-toe grooming whereas I stop short of the toes, literally speaking. For this dinner is one place where it is gender discrimination in the reverse order—the male, unlike his female counterpart, can NOT take his shoes inside the house (of the fellow Bangladeshi). So, I concentrate on my pedicure, for my bare-feet have to be in perfect sync with my flashy upper body attire.
As we near our destination of the dawaat, Apamoni, aka, the female voice of my Garmin GPS (yes, this is before Google Maps pushes the monopoly out of business) tells me: "You have arrived at your destination." True, but where is #1001? I see all the numbers in the vicinity of 1001, but not that exact number. Finally, this house must be it, where the interior of the house is brightly lit but the light on the house number is not working (which is the norm). What confirms beyond doubt that this is a Bangladeshi home is the collection of 50 pairs of male shoes of all denominations piled up (not that neatly) in front of the house like those in front of a Dhaka mosque. Yes, I HAVE arrived at my destination where I leave my shoes at the door, the 51st pair, to join the party where shoes have no names.
So I hear that shoes speak a lot about a person. Unfortunately, during my two decades in the US and literally at hundreds of such deshi WMDs, I have not been able to let my shoes speak as my bare-toes had to do all the talking, which was not much, because remember, we Bangladeshis, more so at such parties, do NOT listen, but just talk.
But I would have thought the picture is different right here at home in Bangladesh. Not so. And I have proof of not only that, but also the fact that people don't even notice our shoes, and perhaps, whether we're wearing shoes at all.
I am at a very formal lunch out in the countryside outside of Dhaka. In between the high-profile mingling, I sneak out to go to a nearby mosque for my Jummah prayers. Being spoilt from attending Jummah prayers in the Tri-State (Gulshan, Baridhara, Banani) area where shoes are not stolen, as there is honour among thieves who steel only smart-phones. So, I leave my penny loafers outside only to find out that they are gone upon finishing my prayers. But age and three kids give me the confidence to go back to the lunch in my California get-up, i.e., formal jacket, shirt, slacks and a pair of formalin-free bare-feet.
I am ready to greet a hundred pairs of eyes going towards my feet by saying: "Hello! My eyes are here!" But surprisingly, no one notices the anomaly, not even when talking to me. Or maybe they do but are too conditioned to seeing government employees in this dress code during midday at their workplaces. Thank heavens for my tan, otherwise the beige slacks would have given the picture of a Naveed wearing nothing below his jacket.
Well, I have to say that one person does notice. And I have to be politically incorrect and blunt here—he is physically just a tad closer to sea-level.
I joke about the incident to my host, who, in his graciousness and wisdom, smilingly says: "Thanks to you, someone is getting the chance to wear a nice pair of shoes". So true, unless, this someone is a loafer with a harem of penny loafers at home, thus being the local, male version of Imelda Marcos.
At a different time, I would have been stressed out. But not today. For I have finally proven a theory I had seen on the silver-screen but never dared to try to prove in the real world. Today, an unknown Imelda and a sense of daring on my part, made me finally believe what Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding [Morgan Freeman] narrates (a man who was born to narrate) in The Shawshank Redemption on the spectacular escape of his fellow inmate, Andy Dufresne [Tim Robbins]: "Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guards simply didn't notice. Neither did I...I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man's shoes?"
Naveed Mahbub is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ATN Bangla's The Naveed Mahbub Show and ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh, and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.
Email: naveed.mahbub@gmail.com