The Thread Remembers
Krishan Shetty
It was the second Sunday of July when Akash first noticed the old man under the banyan tree.
The cobbler sat on a low wooden stool, his back hunched and head bowed as if in prayer. His hands worked with mechanical precision, a slave of repetition. A plank of weathered wood served as his workbench, cluttered with soles, thread, a rusting awl, and an aluminium container with tea stains dried at the edges. A tarp, sagged on one side, had been erected on jagged pieces of wood as an awning which sheltered the tools from the drizzle that had begun again. Thin needles of rain threading down from the grey sky. The tarp flapped languidly like a blue tongue in the brisk evening breeze.
On the first Sunday of August, Akash stood at a distance, hesitating, feeling ridiculous. His shoes were barely scuffed – premium white sneakers that would cost perhaps more than this entire stretch of footpath. His toes did the Mexico wave in nervous anticipation and he finally moved.
He tapped on the wooden plank.
‘Bhaiya, is this shop open?’
The cobbler looked up, his eyes pale grey, like washed out denim. His face was dark and leatherlike. A beard, thin white and black on the cheeks and turned thick white and copper at the chin. He nodded and gestured to the spot in front of him.
‘Sit,’ his voice rasped like sandpaper on old leather.
Akash sat on a low, flat piece of wood and slid one foot forward. He watched the cobbler swivel the shoe in his palm, as if weighing its sins. He let out a soft grunt and nodded.
‘Imported sole,’ he began threading the needle. ‘Doesn’t like Bangalore roads.’
‘What roads?’ Akash chuckled awkwardly.
The man said nothing after that. Only the sound of thread tugging through leather, the soft tap of a hammer, and the distant honking from Commercial Street filled the silence.
Ten minutes later, the shoe was done. ‘Eighty,’ the old man said.
Akash paid him a hundred and walked off. He didn’t even wear the repaired shoe; he stuffed both into his backpack and walked home in his floaters.
The next Sunday, he came back – this time with another pair. Slightly more worn. He told himself it was practicality. But deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something in that silence had spoken to him.
His office was a cube of steel and glass. His leather formal shoes click clacked against the smooth white marble floor. It was like coming into a cold mausoleum after the sun had set. Turnstiles beeped and its revolving gates spun and spun with calibrated mechanical clicks. A sea of people, dressed like Akash, formals in all shades of bore, stood in jagged lines like impatient bees, inching forward, one by one. Security guards flanked the furthest turnstiles, hands folded across their chests, watching the swarm buzz buzz buzz.
Blue-white light flooded the lobby, cold and clinical. Air blew from unseen vents, its whirring drone swallowed by low, indistinct chatter.
He would sit at his desk, click clacking away at the keyboard. A cup of coffee would keep him company till swirling wisps of steam turned to cold dregs. The office was carpeted. Blue with grey. It was a combination that both appealed and made him squirm depending on the lens he looked through. There was the occasional squeak of a grey chair being leaned into. Chatter filled the air, low and constant, like static. If Akash leaned back and closed his eyes, he could separate the chatter. If he looked about, he felt a small stir in his stomach. Desk mates nearly all of them regardless of gender, dressed the same, sat the same and if he noticed carefully, even spoke the same. There was a musical rhythm, one measure of clicking mouse, hammering keyboard, talking into the monitor, cursing under their breath, squeak of the chair, rumble of the coffee machine, squeak of the chair, some more clicking and hammering and some more muted cursing, flush whooshing at the urinal, rinsing of hand, whelp at the glare of the of bright light just above the mirror, squeak of chair and then repeat. This was followed and balanced by a measure of chewing on the back end of a pen, looking down into their phones, thumbing through brain rot. throwing heads back and staring at the ceiling, mouth gaping, tinkle of cutlery, swiping of tray, trivial exchange of weekend tales, replacing trays, rinsing of hands, squeak of chair, shuffle on headphones, soft electrical murmur dancing amidst the low chatter.
At day’s end, he would watch his footprints fade into the carpet’s weave. Another cycle complete. The office bus would motor along the lunar like roads of Bangalore, crashing through craters deep enough to dislodge headphones and rattle bones in tendons. His head rested against the cool glass, watching the city flicker to life as the sun sank behind an ocean of cars. He spoke a lot during his work hours but he had not really talked. His heart yet felt bloated.
By the fourth Sunday, he was on his haunches scanning his shoe collection stacked and neatly housed in transparent plastic cages. They had a rhythm now. Akash bought with him a pair seemingly every Sunday. Firoze mended. Occasionally they spoke. Mostly they didn’t need to.
‘You always wear these to work?’ Firoze asked once, holding up a pair of black leather formals.
‘Yeah. Dress code,’ Aakash said. ‘But I keep sneakers in my bag.’
‘Good,’ Firoze said, nodding. ‘Feet must breathe.’
One afternoon, the conversation drifted.
‘You ever do anything else?’ Aakash asked. ‘Before this, I mean.’
Firoze tapped the awl against the bench thoughtfully. ‘Had a shop once. Shivajinagar crossroad. Before the flyover cut the sky in half. I made shoes, not just fixed them. Sturdy leather, stitched to last ten years.’
He paused, thumb running along the awl’s worn handle.
‘Now they want brand names. Plastic that tears in a season. They pay more for less, but smile like they’ve bought dignity.’
Aakash looked down at his branded loafers. They did pinch.
It was on the seventh visit that Aakash saw the baby shoes.
Tiny, scuffed, made of soft leather, soles worn unevenly.
‘Customer?’ Aakash asked, trying to sound casual.
Firoze’s hands stilled. He looked at the shoes as though they had just spoken.
‘My grandson’s,’ he said softly. His voice caught on the word.
After a moment, he added, almost to himself: ‘Feet grow fast when you’re not looking.’ The air changed. The street noise dulled. Even the crows quieted for a moment.
That evening, back in his flat, Aakash walked past the photograph in the hallway without looking at it. He always did. But halfway to the kitchen, he stopped, turned, and stood before it. His hand rose as if to straighten the tilted frame, but he let it fall back. The smile in the picture was too alive, and he could not hold it for long.
He had been in a client call when she died. Delhi hospital. Complications after chemo. He booked his ticket too late.
He hadn’t spoken about it. Not to his father. Not to anyone. But the silence with Firoze had softened something in him. Worn him down gently, like water shaping stone.
The next Sunday, he brought no shoes.
He just sat.
Firoze said nothing.
After ten minutes, Aakash finally spoke.
‘She used to make me polish my school shoes every night,’ he said. ‘Said a man is judged by his shoes and his handwriting. I lost the second when computers came.’
Firoze looked at him, then quietly handed him a needle and a patch of torn leather.
‘Try.’
Aakash fumbled. The thread tangled. The awl slipped.
‘Slower,’ Firoze said. ‘Stitching is like memory. If you rush, it snags.’
From then on, Aakash came often. Sometimes with chai. Sometimes with shoes. Sometimes just to sit.
One day, he noticed a worn notebook on the bench.
‘Poems?’
Firoze shrugged. ‘Old habit. Urdu. Mostly for myself.’
Aakash flipped a page. The handwriting was elegant, the ink faded but deliberate. One poem stood out. It spoke of a father's hands, calloused from work, reaching for a child who no longer looked back.
Aakash asked if he could scan a few. Post them. Firoze grunted, half amused. ‘Who wants to read about old shoes and older men?’
But he allowed it.
Aakash created an Instagram page: @solestories. It got ten likes the first day. A hundred by the weekend. Someone from a local café DMed him asking if they could display the verses.
Firoze said nothing, but the next week he wore a pressed shirt.
Then, one Sunday, Firoze wasn’t there.
Aakash waited. An hour. Two.
The chai vendor shrugged. ‘Maybe dargah. Sometimes he goes.’
Aakash found him there, sitting alone near the steps.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
Firoze nodded slowly. ‘Today was my son’s birthday,’ Firoze said, eyes fixed on the marble floor.
‘We used to come here together. He’d light the first incense stick, always crooked.’
His mouth twitched.
‘He stopped speaking to me. Or maybe I stopped listening. Hard to tell who began the silence.’
Aakash sat beside him. No words.
Firoze handed him the notebook. ‘Post this one. It's the last.’
The poem was raw. A plea, almost. Not for forgiveness, but for remembrance.
Aakash posted it that night.
A week later, as they were packing up, a man in his 40s approached the stall.
‘Abba?’
Firoze looked up. His hands froze mid-stitch.
No melodrama. No tears. Just recognition. The kind that sits deeper than surprise.
The man crouched beside the bench.
‘I saw the poems,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure. But then ... I knew.’
Firoze didn't say anything. He just pushed a finished shoe toward him.
‘Stitching's better than before,’ the man said, almost smiling.
The next Sunday, Aakash sat alone at the bench.
Firoze arrived later, carrying a new stool.
‘For you,’ he said.
Aakash picked up the awl, turning it in his hand with a strange familiarity. He steadied the thread between his fingers, slower this time, more patient.
‘Alright,’ he said, glancing at Firoze. ‘Correct me if I rush.’ The banyan tree rustled gently above them, shedding its old leaves.
And below, two men bent over worn soles, learning slowly how to put things back together.
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