A Cobbler's tale

A busy, crowded street on a very hot evening. Or should I call it a very busy market?

"Hawkers and other encroachments have made this once upon a time peaceful promenade a very busy place. In fact, it is only a shopping destination these days for all these youth who don't know what to do on weekends. Only a handful of us choose to have our evening walk here, that too purely out of habit. I've been walking here for the past 23 years. This street has lost its charm, I tell you! ...", the septuagenarian I met a few days ago lamented on with his almost practised speech. 

I was seated at the Barista overseeing the street, with the day's daily in hand. There were several articles that day praising the economic growth this country was heading for... how we'd beat Germany in consumer spending soon and how we'd beat USA and China in X and Y etc. There was very little about scams, thankfully. This was before the outbreak of the 2G or wi-max diaries.

There was also this article about the government order to evacuate encroachments from some roads, to manage traffic better. This specific road was in that list of roads and there were also these views of local residents agreeing with it, which reminded me of the 70 year old thatha's statement. Ha ha, the road isn't going to be the paradise for walking and jogging, people - it is being cleared to ensure better traffic management, at the behest of the showrooms and other shops.

I looked at those hawker shops carefully for the first time, wondering if they knew what was coming, with questions like "Would they protest? Would they go in silence? Would they be silenced?" running through my mind. I saw a family of three - a man, his wife and a little girl - with huge purchases coming out of a showroom, all smiling. The girl was dragging one of her feet, and her mom told her something (of course, I couldn't hear that from that far, not even taking into account all that noise from the traffic). The girl then flung her slippers from her feet and got into a car parked nearby.

I'd never noticed before, but there was a cobbler's place nearby, almost hidden (like the leaky cauldron?) by the huge mall behind him and the jazzy, glittering side of roadside vendors selling rolex watches (yea, right) at 100 bucks a piece. As soon as the car merged with the rest of the traffic, the very old cobbler slowly walked to the platform, his struggle to walk without any support very visible. He took the slippers and went back to his place at the same pace, and started working on it happily. I smiled at the cobbler's 'fortune' and went back to reading the newspaper.

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A while later, I was walking along the street to reach the bus stop at the end of it. That was when I saw a 5 year old girl begging in the middle of the street, amidst all the traffic. An auto almost hit her and the auto driver shouted at her to go out of the road. The girl cried, probably out of shock, leaning on the signpost at one end of the street. Just then, the cobbler cried out to her. The girl stared at him for a couple of seconds, wondering why, and then walked up to him. He handed out the pair of slippers he had just stitched and asked her to put them on instead of walking on bare feet in that heat. The child got very excited, put them on and happily jumped all her way along the platform, leaving the cobbler grinning from ear to ear.

I realized then, that the street, that had lost its 'charm' long ago, was also going to lose its heart soon.