Never barefoot in the park — or at home!

We are told that digging one’s toes into the sand is therapeutic. Whether you are a toddler learning to walk, a young adult in a hurry to reach somewhere or a septuagenarian with gnarled feet, just rid yourself of your shoes, curl your toes in the sand, and let your spirits soar ...

Many of us walk barefoot indoors. Once the house is swept and mopped, we make sure no more dirt is spread around by our footwear. Somehow, however, going barefoot has always been uncomfortable for me. When I enter the spotlessly clean homes of friends who have a shoe stand either just outside or just inside their front door, I dither on the threshold.

If I know in advance that I’m likely to have to leave my shoes outside, I arm myself with a pair of socks — and then I balance on one foot as I put them on prior to entry — and take them off once I exit. If I don’t have socks, I try to walk on as little of my foot as possible — and my gait and expression as I teeter on toe or heel make it evident that it is unpleasant and I can’t wait to get away. The same in dentists’ clinics, computer labs, temples ...wherever footwear is not permitted.

“Your rules at home must have made me like this,” I accused Mother – and to set me straight, she took me down memory lane.

When Mother was a child, she ran from one end of her hometown to the other without any footwear at all. Insects and dirt and thorns did not bother her and her parents were much too busy with the rest of their brood to keep tabs on what each of their offspring was doing. More important, there were not enough shoes to go around and had she wanted to protect her feet and get a pair of slippers or sandals, she would have got a cuff on her ear for being demanding.

As an adult, Mother did an about turn. Shoes were important to her — for herself and for us. It could have been her years of deprivation or, more likely, it was because we lived in places with all manner of wildlife circling our home — and very often getting in.

There was no way Mother would allow any of us to pad around barefoot on the cold stone floors of the bungalows we lived in or venture outdoors unshod.

At dusk, we three children were kept on a bed in the centre of the room, under the protective canopy of a mosquito net, and we waited patiently while the evening ritual proceeded.

Every curtain was shaken and each door jamb was inspected, shadows and lumps and bumps in dark corners were never shrugged away – they could be patient kraits or cobras waiting for a false step from us ...

Mother was not willing to even remotely consider that the ‘poor’ creatures just wanted to stay cool on our floors, or on the rafters, or behind the curtains. For her, every one of them was intent on making a meal of her precious children! We could laugh about it later and we even dared to lecture her when we grew into adults.

But the damage had been done. All three of us are unable to discard our footwear except when we get into bed!

What’s more, some of us have taken the hang-up and thrust it onto the next generation ... absolutely sure that we have justification too, for we have had out stint in the same kind of bungalows with scorpions falling through the false ceiling and vipers curling around the legs of the easy chairs...

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.