Little Feet🐾

Walking across the street, I came across a little pink chappal. This pretty pink chappal told me a story.

A story of discomfort, conditioning, and choices.

Some little girl gave up because she could no longer carry the burden. Perhaps it was too much for her little feet. Perhaps she finally gathered the courage to defy the terms and conditions. Perhaps she finally wanted to set herself free.

This little chappal carries the weight of choices and expectations. When her mother scolds her to behave, or her father gives her a look and says something different from what he would say to her brother, she carries the pressure to be a “girl” — to behave according to social expectations, to be “sweet” and “likeable”, to be anything but herself.

Those chappals might have caused her discomfort. They might have made her feet sore. They might have been too heavy to let her walk or hop freely. But she was made to wear them. So, she put them on.

Her brother, seeing her discomfort, might have asked her to tell her parents, “I don’t want them.”

She wanted to reply, letting him know that her father, who loved his little girl dearly, was too consumed by the idea of what a “girl’s opinion” should be to hear her. Her mother, who had never defied anything, might think of her as rebellious. She wanted to say all this to her brother, but instead, she said, “I’ll manage.”

As I pass by, I wonder what would have been the fate of the other chappal. Would she still be holding on to it? Or would the girl have set herself completely free?