The Shoe Shiner

Climbing down the station steps, I decided to board the next train, skipping the one which had already arrived….

          

The platform seat being occupied by only one person, I did not miss the opportunity of having a seat till the next train arrived. The seat was cold…made out of some mortar containing marble chips. Just next to the seat, where I was sitting on the edge, stood the steel stanchions holding the roof of the station. The two c-shaped sections facing each other inwardly hid the rainwater down-take pipe.

Suddenly, I heard some clanging and banging from the seat underneath. But soon I realized that it was only the polish walah, who was trying to remove his wooden box which was chained to a hole in the leg of the seat. The chain passed through the hole and then the gap between the two c-sections, which made a lot of noise while he opened it. Carrying the box through the handle on its top face, he circumambulated the stanchion, kept it in the front keeping enough space between the column and the box, for him to sit. Here, he took his final position.

The box was quite fascinating…its edges had smoothened out due to everyday in and out! Completely dark and almost black, it had accumulated a lot of dust from the station floor, from passers-by, from the railway tracks and all the sources one can think of. The size of the box was small. It was easy to carry, maintain and move. Added to the chained security, the box too had a separate lock…a small lock which the owner promptly opened.

The box was completely hollow, and stuffed with some of his belongings - which he took out one by one… a plastic-bag was one of the first things he removed. Then he removed his shirt and redressed himself with the shirt in the plastic bag. Then suddenly, he opened a drawer inside the box! This drawer was barely an inch deep made in the same material as that of the box. It had a partition, dividing it into two halves. One contained a comb and a circular mirror and nothing else and other had some money. He promptly took up the comb and holding the mirror in the other hand, he made-up himself. Then, adjusting himself properly in the position, as he had to sit there for the whole day, he started putting back the things, which were not needed, into the box. And the things he needed were taken out one by one again…

The polish walah had a worn out brush… the profile of the bristles of the brush had almost changed from a straight edge into into a parabola… the swing of the brush, which rubbed the face of the shoe. He quickly examined the brush and removed the dried polish of the earlier day, from its bristles. As he took out his small circular polish box, one could see hundreds of tiny pores in it, finer than the bristles of the brush.

Other than these two things, he also had a roll of cloth - much like a doctor’s bandage, although synthetic. Usually polish walahs use it to bring out the luster of the polish on the shoe. The polish walah unrolled it, examined it and then rolled it again.

The box of the polish walah was quite an architectural piece. Minimum in detail, it still had a complexity. The handle on the top of the box was not merely used as a handle, but the real purpose was to rest the foot with the shoe to be polished. The height was maintained such that the shoe would just be in level and aligned with the chest. This allowed an easy movement of the hand and also proper view for the eye. Not only that, the customer also feels it comfortable. He does not have to rise up his knee till the waist. The edges were of course worn out of time, but it seemed to be a detail in itself.

(old unfinished writing, 2005)