COBBLER

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

  

 

 

COBBLER

 

A cobbler, also known as a shoemaker or cordwainer, makes, repairs, and restores footwear. It’s one of the world’s oldest professions that peaked long ago but is still going great guns.

 

Cobblers have been around for about as long as shoes. Today, many cobblers are shoemakers too besides being repairers, though, historically, these two professions were considered separate. Shoemakers are skilled artisans who make shoes by hand out of brand-new leather. Cobblers, on the other hand, mostly repair shoes. In fact, in the olden days, cobblers were often forbidden from working with new leather. Instead, they had to use old leather only to make their repairs - a biased and partisan restriction against them now done away with.

 

People of yore wandered here and there barefoot. Can you think of doing so in this modern world? Needless to say, footwear is a vital part of our lives today, as they protect our feet from the territories and things which we don’t want to step on. 

Rain or shine, the cobbler would be there in a small corner of a road, invariably at a busy junction, with his gaze on the feet of the passersby. Although the cobbler touches your footwear and handles the torn ones for repair, I would never say it’s a mean job. He is like any other service provider say a barber, beautician, etc. Think of a situation either during the hot summer or heavy downpours when you walk along on an urgent job, and if your footwear gets cracked or ruptured by say a slip, dash against a heavy object, due to wear and tear, or otherwise! You would curse your time or ill-luck thus, “What is this footwear which has let me down and gone out of service at a crucial time?” On such an unfortunate thing happening, your eyes would start rounding the whole area and you would not rest unless and until you sighted a cobbler to repair it. If you catch hold of one, you would feel as if you were the luckiest person of that day in the world. Yes, at that time, no other thing or person than a cobbler would be the most-needed or most sought-after person for you. And when your footwear is patched up, repaired, and made wearable, you would heave a big sigh of relief and hail it as an achievement saying to yourself, ‘Lost paradise regained.’

With the agony and hard time vanishing after repair is carried out, some would forget all that had happened, and start bargaining with the cobbler for the pittance they would pay him. Kindly never ever bargain with a cobbler. After all, he repaired your shoes at the most crucial and trying time when they suddenly went on strike and made you continue your journey with comfort. At such times, you can’t buy new chappals or shoes for two reasons - one, you can’t readily find a nearby Footwear Shop from where you can buy (whether you have sufficient money on hand at that time also remains), and even if you purchase, the new ones will bite your feet making you still uncomfortable and painful. Of course, nowadays, even roadside cobblers do have new chappals and/or shoes of different sizes to be sold. And, even if you were to buy a pair from him and wear it, that may also bite you. The safest course would be to get the old pair patched up and repaired as a stop-gap, wear it, and proceed! Of course, as your shoes log countless miles in the normal course and ultimately wear out, and when it is particularly torn, your eyes make a far and wide search for a cobbler (who, at that time, would be a VIP for us) for repair to make them walk-worthy.

Once you buy new shoes and start wearing them, you normally don’t bother about or need a cobbler. The initial hiccup would be in the form of their ‘biting’ your feet. Though some suggest oiling the shoes on the main touch points for quite some time to avoid biting, I have been adopting a different method to guard against shoe-biting. I would purchase a new pair even before the old one is fully worn out and getting torn rendering it unwearable, and use the new pair and old pair alternately. By doing so, one would get relief from shoe-biting. The modus-operandi is to wear the new pair first and the moment it starts biting, switch over to the old one. If you rotate wearing of the pairs, soon the new one will adjust itself and you will be freed from the discomfort. The interval between the wearing of the new one and changing over to the old one (and vice versa) till you get adapted, accustomed to, and become friendly with the new pair varies from individual to individual, and the time taken for acclimatization.  

 

Cobbler is an expert in identifying the problems like - broken heels, worn-out soles, ugly wrinkles, crooked seams, unsightly holes, damaged waterproofing, faded colours, and/or busted eyelets. For every shoe is a puzzle or riddle that must be resolved and set right, if one or more of these problems occur, in unique ways the cobbler knows, even if it meant a challenge to him. As a community, cobblers can pride themselves on standard quality craftsmanship. Though, in fact, cobblers are talented professionals in footwear, they are not properly recognized. And, most people look at him with disdain and scorn. Yes, the same outlook is adopted for boot polishers as well.

  

I don’t bargain with at least two persons in this world - Old Newspaper Walah and Cobbler.

Between labour and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do. Whether a job is to be classified as labour or work depends, not on the job, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not coincide, for example, with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a labourer!

Ironically, a blacksmith’s horse and the cobbler’s wife are perhaps the last to have shoes. And, a cobbler’s children go barefoot. The cobbler perhaps wears the worst shoes.

To quote Michel de Montaigne, “The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould.”

 

Issac Bickerstaffe said, “Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick King”.

 

An advertisement “A shoe has so much more to offer than just to walk” underscores its importance.

 

On the lighter side, Physicians are also cobblers in a sense, rather the botchers, of our bodies. Won't you concur?

 

American actress, late Marilyn Monroe, used to say with pride, “If I ever let my head down, it will be to admire my shoes (thanks to the cobbler).”

 

Yes, I repeat, don’t bargain with at least two persons in this world - Old Newspaper Wala and Cobbler.

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

30/5/2023