A few years ago a shoeline was launched with a smart catch-line: Your feet in safe hands. It struck a chord and the company went on to reap dividends in the market. But walking in Delhi, those famous shoes on or not, your feet are far from safe hands. Our feet, often much calloused, cracked and care-worn due to the demands of urban living, bear the brunt all the time. Photo: S. Subramanium
Picture: you are climbing stairs on your way to work. Often all the body weight is on your toes. You are running to catch a Metro or a bus, again, the weight on your toes. You are walking on a pavement in Delhi – a luxury these days – and you come across a missing slab. What do you do? You halt in your tracks, tip-toe your way across. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
Or you are walking on the road because the pavement is occupied by some street vendors – a misnomer because the street vendors are on the pavement and the pedestrians on the road – and you find an auto-rickshaw parked in the no-parking zone. You move a little sideways, all the time looking over your shoulder lest the traffic behind you run you over. Or recollect the time when you had to cross the road: the zebra crossing is occupied by motorists, the overhead bridge is too daunting. Sole alternative? Rush across the road, one hand gingerly touching a car parked well beyond the stopline, another frantically waving to stop the incoming traffic. Photo: S. Subramanium
Ah! To be a pedestrian on the roads of Delhi. As for the pavements, where are they? Often hidden, almost always unusable. If they are not occupied by street fashion and food experts, they are half broken. If they are not half broken, they have trees in the middle of nowhere. Mostly though, they are all in one: occupied by shops, trees, broken down the middle, and finally even used as improved car parking. Photo: S. Subramanium
As for your feet, well, you could use your hands to press them after a hard day walking on Delhi’s roads. Photo: S. Subramanium
