Sunday, April 13, 2008

Punjabi Jutti

Earlier days among my other passions, one was Punjabi Jutti (footwear). Whenever I visited my father’s native village in Punjab, buying atleast one pair of this traditional footwear used to be a compulsory ritual. I was really passionate about these hand made beaded shoes.

Whenever I could not visit the village, I used to send a drawing of my foot for size as this footwear didn’t carry any size numberings. All the work was done manually in the family of these shoemakers. Surprisingly this footwear have no left-right sides, these shoes adopt their positions themselves with the passage of time of usage. Initially, if the wearer is not used to these kinds of shoes, he/she have to bear a little biting too. I too have proudly bore many blisters caused by these jutties. Wearing jutties always produced a sense of proud in me. My cousins in village used to wonder why I gave so much importance to these shoes as they always wanted to wear modern sports shoes. But for me this traditional wear was a reason of ecstasy and a feeling of importance.

I spent a handsome amount of my savings on collection of these shoes. Available in different colors and styles, each pair had a unique statement to present. These shoes have one another great specialty, specialty of producing very dramatic cracking sound while walking. No doubt the wearer feels a sense of style when heads turn around to watch such possessions. Not only for myself, I can’t forget a gorgeous pair of feet wearing such beautiful jutties presented by me.

In these days of globalisation, where everything is available everywhere, such possessions have lost their sparkles. You can’t have that joy nowadays, what I had in those days, while visiting village of such shopping or waiting impatiently for someone to bring those craftsmanship for me.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First of all let me tell I need the Punjabi Jutti :P

Will read and post comment later on :).