I generally think we don’t give our feet the respect they deserve most of the time. Yes, we go shopping for shoes all the time, pride ourselves on those 22 pairs of footwear we may use to drape them up, make sure we make pedicure appointments and are happily dolling them up in a thousand shades of nail paint (if you are the fairer sex mostly) but really is that all? I mean what about all those times when we end up using not-so-flattering adjectives to refer to feet- smelly, dirty and unholy? Remember all those times when your Mom told you off when you touched your books accidentally with your foot? Or how it is generally considered disrespectful to sit with your feet up on a chair? Poor feet, like they don’t deserve to chill! To cut a long story short, this ill-treatment and the constant pressure of being inferior is the bane of our feet’s measly lives. One can almost associate it with a waging class war among the different body parts where the brain commands supremacy for enjoying the topmost position in the physiological hierarchy of the human anatomy followed by the heart, stomach, the pelvis and then finally, way down below those lowly, neglected and down-trodden feet. One can actually explain the ancient caste system that our country has been practising for a thousand years by depicting it through our various body parts and why not? The Brahmins have always looked upon themselves to serve as the society’s intellect and conscience, primary functions of the brain. The Kshatriyas are the chest- denoting valour and a heart swelling with pride. The Vaishnavas can be the hand, dealing in the trade of goods and services or exchange of hands. The Shudras are the feet, often allowed in public only when covered and hidden, and relegated to unjust terms such as ‘dirty’ and ‘unholy’.
All these metaphorical explorations aside, I myself realised the true worth of my feet only when they became dysfunctional through a couple of minor accidents. So if you have ever had a foot fractured you would know what I am talking about. I had the misfortune to crack not one, not two but three toes in between the biggest and smallest toes in my left foot not so long ago. Not only did this translate into an excruciating pain in the foot every time I even dared to land its sole on any surface but it also meant wrapping it up in bright blue plaster that would render it immobile and pretty much out of action for a month. Of course, accidents aren’t deliberately acted upon and I would have never intentionally hurt the poor foot but the fact that it was now in abject misery stupefied me. It had never really struck me that I would be dependent on a crutch or someone to hold me up to attend to nature’s call. How I had taken it for granted that I can walk thanks to my foot! The accident enabled me to get some perspective two feet deep.
I was forced to acknowledge the worth of the two most underestimated parts of my body- the reason why we are able to stay rooted to our earthly existence and why we don’t simply topple off. Together, they suddenly struck me as the sheer foundation which enables us to balance and speed up our pace of life as per our preference. Finally, it dawned on me that if not for our feet, we would be stationary, stagnant, stilted, stunted, unable to mobilise our energies and our thoughts through our actions or movement, unable to walk the talk. Suddenly, a deep sense of gratitude flowed through me for this precious gift we are born with and it struck me how we are so indifferent to those who are differently abled- moving through life without these gifts and yet, doing as well as our so-called normal selves if not better.
Once my feet were back in action healed from the fracture, I felt like a baby reborn. I caressed my recently healed foot, imagining the newly grown tissues, the throbbing nerves, the delicate veins that fueled it and the gentle bones that traced their own intricate architecture within this external encasing. There it was, my foot reborn. I could stand again, dance again, exercise again and even jump for joy like my three-year-old kid. I knew I was blessed, privileged and lucky to be whole again. Never again would I doubt the significance of my foot, neglect its utility and function or take it for granted.
So while riding in the metro one day, I happened to look down at my feet, and remember feeling so happy that I could stand like this. This was the kind of revelation the fractured foot had made to me, how lightly I had thought I could take life, standing on the balls of my feet when actually that mere act meant the flexing of bones, muscles and nerves so that I could assume such a stance. I looked at the pearly white nails and reminded myself that it was time to coat some paint over them to make them look better and more beautiful. Suddenly, though the train lurched and I was pushed back to the world around me, only to experience a rush of pain concentrated on the big toe of my right foot. I looked down, unable to detect any visible injury but the pain worsened with every passing minute. I looked up to see the poker face of a teenage girl, guiltless and without remorse. She looked like she couldn’t care less that she had just nearly mangled the toe of a perfectly healthy person just a few seconds ago. I looked down at my foot again and it throbbed with self-pity this time, pained further at the sheer insouciance of the perpetrator of the injury. I wondered how people had become so rude in this generation of teens, not caring to even apologise for an accident it caused, even though unintentionally. All the way back home, the night of the accident and the one after that, pain coursed through the toe, disabling my body from concentrating on sleep or work. I applied balm on it, creamed its surface with an anti-injury ointment and wondered if I had experienced a second fracture- this time on the right foot? Was this a sign from God that I was to be punished for some vile disservice I had done to my limbs waist down?
All I knew is the terrible pain gave way to the gradual uprooting of the injured toenail. Who knew some unruly teenager’s stamping on my foot would lead to this mishap? So now recently jolted into looking at my right foot in a new light, I am seeing it through the uneven, misshapen, unsure growth of a new-formed nail. As I marvel at the regenerative strength of the human body, I still travel by metro, I still savour the fact that I have two functional feet albeit one with a weird-looking toenail, and I celebrate my right to free locomotion all the time. After all, life is all about enriching one’s perspective of survival, one foot at a time.
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