Sorry for the silence guys, I don’t know where the last few weeks have gone (and I've had some trouble uploading a posting with a video - that's on hold for now). Let me just jump feet first into something that I’ve been wondering these last few weeks. I’ve been thinking about elegance. These thoughts were actually inspired by the state of my feet, so not exactly the most elegant starting point but if you bear with me, there is some elegance in the end.
A few weeks back I bought thee very lovely Kolaphuri sandals. They’re lovely to wear but Ahmedabad is one dusty place and after a day walking around my feet have been getting quite dusty and dirty. I’ve been coming back to our flat (yes, I’ve moved out of my bosses’ lovely Jupiter pad and into a 10th floor room with a view – more about the view another time) and spending a good 5 or 10 minutes trying to get my feet clean. But really it has felt like I was fighting a losing battle – no matter how much I would soap and rub, and rub and soap they would still look a little off colour.
Then one day a couple of weeks ago Avni suggested a pumice stone (you know the type? A stone with bubbles inside…think funny shaped, sand-coloured Wispa bar if you are in the UK). She said it would be really handy in bringing back the sparkle to my feet again.
A few weeks back I bought thee very lovely Kolaphuri sandals. They’re lovely to wear but Ahmedabad is one dusty place and after a day walking around my feet have been getting quite dusty and dirty. I’ve been coming back to our flat (yes, I’ve moved out of my bosses’ lovely Jupiter pad and into a 10th floor room with a view – more about the view another time) and spending a good 5 or 10 minutes trying to get my feet clean. But really it has felt like I was fighting a losing battle – no matter how much I would soap and rub, and rub and soap they would still look a little off colour.
Then one day a couple of weeks ago Avni suggested a pumice stone (you know the type? A stone with bubbles inside…think funny shaped, sand-coloured Wispa bar if you are in the UK). She said it would be really handy in bringing back the sparkle to my feet again.
Since then I’ve been popping into all kinds of little stores and huts and shacks , but I have not found anything that resembles this simple piece of stone. I couldn’t understand why it would be so difficult to find a stone until the other day when I was enlightened by a store owner just near our apartment.
I had gone into to the little store which sells beauty products and underwear, as I’d been told that this would be the best kind of store to look in and I asked if they sold pumice stone. The owner looked pleased in the way that only shop owners can when they know that they’ve got exactly what you’re looking for. I beamed him a smile in return and my feet breathed a sigh of relief! He finished up with his other customer and then pulled out a tray of items for me.
Actually, what he pulled out was a tray of bars of blocks of something that looked hard that were in a variety of colours from a bright orange to a deeply intense blue. I took a look at one of the bars and it seemed reasonably interesting. There was even a little rope attached which I guess you could use to hang it up from or twirl it around your finger as you while away your hours in the bathroom. I asked if I could take one of the bars out if it’s plastic wrapping and have a closer look. The shop keeper looked a little surprised but said fine.
Opening it up I saw that one side was flat and on the other, little grooves had been etched into the surface. As I turned the bar over in my hands and I realised that it was made of up of tiny bits of stone that had the look coloured crystals. I rubbed the bar against my palm and as I did so a few crumbs of the compacted, crystallised stone came off. I rubbed a little harder and some more came off.
My face fell as I realised that these bits of crystaline stone were being held together by some kind of glue.
I asked the owner if he just had the simple puthro. You know, the kind that you use for scrubbing feet.
He said no.
I umm’ed. I ah’ed. ‘Kya thi marse?’
Oh, no you won’t find those stones anywhere. Buy one of these. They’re very attractive, no?
Well, yes the colours are interesting but I don’t think they are going to work very well. Do you ever get just the stones?
No, no, not really. Those stones are old. People always want something new. Try this, it’s the latest and will look very nice in your bathroom....
I had gone into to the little store which sells beauty products and underwear, as I’d been told that this would be the best kind of store to look in and I asked if they sold pumice stone. The owner looked pleased in the way that only shop owners can when they know that they’ve got exactly what you’re looking for. I beamed him a smile in return and my feet breathed a sigh of relief! He finished up with his other customer and then pulled out a tray of items for me.
Actually, what he pulled out was a tray of bars of blocks of something that looked hard that were in a variety of colours from a bright orange to a deeply intense blue. I took a look at one of the bars and it seemed reasonably interesting. There was even a little rope attached which I guess you could use to hang it up from or twirl it around your finger as you while away your hours in the bathroom. I asked if I could take one of the bars out if it’s plastic wrapping and have a closer look. The shop keeper looked a little surprised but said fine.
Opening it up I saw that one side was flat and on the other, little grooves had been etched into the surface. As I turned the bar over in my hands and I realised that it was made of up of tiny bits of stone that had the look coloured crystals. I rubbed the bar against my palm and as I did so a few crumbs of the compacted, crystallised stone came off. I rubbed a little harder and some more came off.
My face fell as I realised that these bits of crystaline stone were being held together by some kind of glue.
I asked the owner if he just had the simple puthro. You know, the kind that you use for scrubbing feet.
He said no.
I umm’ed. I ah’ed. ‘Kya thi marse?’
Oh, no you won’t find those stones anywhere. Buy one of these. They’re very attractive, no?
Well, yes the colours are interesting but I don’t think they are going to work very well. Do you ever get just the stones?
No, no, not really. Those stones are old. People always want something new. Try this, it’s the latest and will look very nice in your bathroom....
So, I left and went for a walk with feet that were still in need of a good hard scrub. As I walked around and forgot about my feet, I began thinking about how wonderful it is that somehow some stones are formed, which seem to fit rather neatly into the palms of human hands, can actually happen to do a pretty good job of helping you scrub the Ahmedabadi grime from your feet.
The very fact that these bubbly stones (which, I have since discovered, are formed after volcanic eruptions) come into existence at all seemed to be an amazing demonstration of elegance compared to the clumsy attempt of some manufacturer to….
‘Ah, just walk back to your cave, you dirty footed Luddite. Those old bits of crusty volcano don’t come in the perfect colour to match the awesome design that we made up for our bathroom, do they?’
The very fact that these bubbly stones (which, I have since discovered, are formed after volcanic eruptions) come into existence at all seemed to be an amazing demonstration of elegance compared to the clumsy attempt of some manufacturer to….
‘Ah, just walk back to your cave, you dirty footed Luddite. Those old bits of crusty volcano don’t come in the perfect colour to match the awesome design that we made up for our bathroom, do they?’
