Weekday Musings: The Truth Beneath Our Feet

During Diwali cleaning, as I was dusting books on my old wooden revolving rack, my eyes fell upon Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories — a fat volume of almost a thousand pages. Between Sherlock Holmes and Poirot, I’ve always found the latter fascinating for the way he ‘reads’ people and draws conclusions that unravel a mystery.

I took the book out, meaning to read it later, and just a few days back I happened to read one of his stories, The Veiled Lady — a perfect example of how minutely he observes his subjects. In the story, a jewel thief poses as Lady Millicent, due to marry the Duke of Southshire. She is heavily veiled and dressed to appear every inch a lady of high birth, but Poirot notices something amiss in her appearance. It was her shoes, which didn’t quite match what was expected of a woman of refined means. That simple observation was enough for him to conclude she was an impostor.

It set me thinking: how did footwear — of all things — become such a marker of class and authenticity? Clothes, yes — one can understand that. They are visible, they announce us before we speak. Shoes, though, are often half-hidden, modestly doing their work close to the ground. Why should they be the final judges of who we are?

Perhaps the answer lies precisely in their modesty. For centuries, people have known that the visible self can be polished, even borrowed, for an occasion. But the hidden detail — the one we assume no one notices — often betrays the truth.

The newly rich could copy a designer outfit or a tailored suit, but not the fine stitching, the perfect leather, the effortless care that came naturally to those who had lived with refinement for generations.

The true upper class, it seems, never dressed to impress — they dressed from habit. Their shoes shone not from showiness but from quiet discipline. As someone once said, “Character shows in what we do when we think no one is looking.” Shoes are precisely that — a reflection of our unseen selves.

As a case in point, many years ago, one of my dear friends visited us for the first time. I should mention that he belongs to a very rare, truly elite class — without the slightest air of entitlement; a mark of genuine breeding passed down through generations. When we saw him off at the door, we waited while he slipped on his shoes. They were fine shoes, well-kept, nothing to find fault with. Yet he smiled apologetically and said, “Old shoes are always more comfortable.” That simple remark, so natural and unassuming, stayed with me. It showed me that shoes indeed maketh the man._As Raymonds would say, he was the perfect man.

Even today, without the rigid class markers of Agatha Christie’s time, the principle holds. The little scuffed corner, the well-worn sole, the lovingly polished leather — each tells a story. They speak of care or carelessness, of pretense or authenticity. A detective like Poirot simply reads what’s already written under our feet.

Quietly carrying us through dust and rain, they may know more truths about us than any mirror ever can.

Sometimes I think if our shoes could talk, they’d tell our biographies in footsteps. Would they speak of long walks and easy contentment, or of hurried steps and unfinished business? They’d know it all, and would merely sigh and say, “He is a kind man, looking after me and himself. He still has miles to go before he hangs me up and rests... Till then, I’ll be with him at every step.”

And maybe that’s all right. After all, our shoes don’t lie. They carry us faithfully, while we chase appearances or truths. And if we ever pause to look down, we might find that the real story — of class, of character, of life itself — has always been quietly waiting there, beneath our feet.