Following the trail of Imelda Marcos.......

A long over due post, this was meant to be written out when my shoe collection touched a solid ton. The sloth that I am, I put off writing this till now even though the century came up sometime during March this year. Why write it now then, you might ask. On Monday I get 2 more from US which takes the total up to a 150. A feat worth mentioning don’t you think ;-)…buckle up for the story that reveals how a simple city girl started of small, then lost her marbles in between and is now a complete shoe-junkie!

I still remember my humble beginnings. As a kid pumps were a luxury that mother rarely allowed to indulge on the behest of her daughter so every year I would get one, plus another strappy sandal which I would use all year log and team with anything and everything, not caring 2 hoots whether they matched with the outfit or not. I still have the tiny yellow pumps that I wore as a 5 year-old kid safely tucked away. (BTW I still have the shoes my barbie dressed up in and she was way too posh for her time; her boots were  from Dubai and so was she :D...But the 150 here are only the currently wearable ones and definitely mine)

Then I reached high school and my needs grew and I started looking out for more options, black was good, but black and white would be better. Red is bright but yellow is brighter. But I was still a firm believer in wearing out my single pair of sneakers first, patch them if needed and only then ask for a replacement. Remnants of this era also find place in the smorgasbord that is my room currently. Soon time caught up and a sort of frenzy began. Rocksters helped me in my rainbow collection many times over and even added some colours and patterns that are hard to come by in the natural rainbow. These have stood the test of time and still remain rock hard, right where they started of from, under my feet (pun super-intended ;-)). What started as a mild fetish has today transformed itself into a full blown and complete addiction. The whole gamut of colours anyways find an esteemed position in my shoe-rack but giving them company are the textures (glossy/matte), the occasions (formal/semi-formal/casual/bling bling),  the revelations (clogs/peep toes/strappy)  and the elevations (flats/graceful-high/stand-up-and-take-notice-of-me- high/11^th-Heaven-high), and in various permutations and combinations mind you !!!  They are all one happy family at the moment but they fear the wrath of Mother India, who has warned the deluded daughter that any further additions to this not-so-small-anymore family, might mean definite eviction of the prodigal daughter and her beloved shoes. So the 2 new ones  from US might not receive the warm welcome the family normally is entitled to, but dire measures will have to be employed to keep our firangi friends happy!!!

Everybody who knows me, knows Priyanka loves her shoes. She has a spare at all times so that the rain/slush doesn’t ruin the snazzy ones; she has backups of the timeless beauties stashed away to be brought out only when the going gets tough; she cares for them more than her BF (can be verified with the poor boy himself who didn’t know that he was funding his nemesis when he funded for the first  big shoe splurge way back in 2006!!!). I carried back 26 pairs from my recent visit to UK (I had to throw out the clothes, cosmetics etc.. which I had taken from here, to make space for them in my check-in bag) and guarded them viciously during the journey so much so that  if I hadn’t boarded the flight in 15 minutes, the authorities at the Heathrow Airport would have definitely retained me to search my belongings!  Yeah I’m just that mad, but I don’t suffer from this insanity, I completly enjoy it :D. As soon I reach home after being away for 2 months, my sister asks me to quickly line up my newest acquisitions,;photos are taken and uploaded on her FB account pronto!! FB being FB, comments also come back pronto!! I am told that when one of the comments read this “ WOW…are these all really yours” the reply to this read “ Sure…They can all be found in my house”. Willy huh??? Not that I’ll ever let that hippo get into any of my beloved shoes, but I see the first signs of shoe-mania spreading to the younger one…

Well good luck with that to her and to all the shoe fanatics out there…Let’s see who reaches the Imelda Marcos’s trail first :-p :-p :-p

P.S.: Above are some of the members of the family, not all of them are here yet, but will soon be. Now now don’t ask me to pick favourites in my family, if red miss muffet with the black piping were to get to know this secret she would go sit right at the centre of the picture hogging all the attention, then the rest would arrange a mutiny and leave me with nothing but bites…..Shoe-away before the insanity latches one ;-))