Shoes

It is never too late

I was seven years old when I found my interest in shoes. I would never leave anywhere without my princess fairy shoes. On all my birthdays, New Year and Christmas, all I wanted were shoes. I grew up dreaming to be the world’s best shoe designer and here I am, today, Nalni Rawat, famous designer from a small city climbed the city of dreams in no easy way. We all had our fights and I had mine. It’s been 4 years since I haven’t called my parents and since I packed my bags and left to grab my opportunities.

Not that I didn’t grew up with all the love parents can shower but I could not do a job and all they wanted was a settled job. It was raining and those little tears could not hold me back. I packed all my designs and left for Mumbai. I had to and I still do not regret any of my decisions. But sometimes, we hear people saying that we realize the value of things only when we lose it.

The morning tea in the bed and readily breakfast on the table, laundry done and designed in the wardrobe and a call that dinner is ready to how to make breakfast, do my own laudry, preapare my own and eat them all by myself, these 4 years have taught me life. But this wasn’t it. Life had a lot more rolling for me and I learned the biggest lesson of my life when after years I decided to come back to my own city. It was the time of Vanity Fair and I knew my family would show up. I paid a little to higher and got my self the first stall. Even after all the fame I have received and all the designers to whom I obviously pay to work for me, I am never tired to design my own stall and to put all my shoe designs into a line and to walk into a fairy land of shoes.

I started this when I was little, I would take a sad pair of shoes normally white in color and put my glitter on it. I would paint, paste gems, put sparkle around. It was a mere hobby unless my dad’s friend from New Delhi showed up on a weekend and paid huge lot to buy my designs. May be shoe designer was not any high end profile to flaunt your friends but this is all what I wanted.

I had huge sales that day but no fun. And just to surprise all of us at the fair, few music bands and Bollywood celebrities turned up to show a warm welcome to public and out of which I also knew few of them. While I was speaking to a friend, a little girl in a pink frock, reminding me of my childhood, turned up and got stuck with one of my Pink Fur lace shoe design. Her father told her that it was not required and asked her to leave it. It was expensive too and when she showed me her puppy face, it melted me deep down and I offered her for free. She almost dropped herself from his arms and I insisted his father to take it as a gift. Her father took the shawl away from her and showed me that her legs were amputated. He felt embarrassed and then left the stall. It made me realize that we all have dreams to grab things in life, but that simply didn’t mean we should jump out of our parent arms to grab them, as they were the one to hold on us even when we didn’t have any dreams.

I was embarrassed and I rushed towards that man and gave him those little pair of shoes. I gave it because I felt that I was giving it to myself. In my entire life I never had friends or made any academic excellence or achieved any medal. All I had was my fairy little shoes besides me whenever I needed confidence to face the world.

It was 2:00 am when i knocked on that door that i left 4 years back.