It had turned into a regular occurrence. Three days in a row my sandals had gone missing during the midday but reappeared in the evening.  One does not need much intelligence to solve such cases. The pattern indicated it was an insider’s job. I too caught the culprit--Narsamma. Only in reply, she unashamedly showed   her full set of teeth.

Narsamma was a household maid. My landlord --one of the wealthy personalities  of a small district town of south India where I worked, was her employer. They provided her breakfast and some monthly allowance but no lunch or dinner. To have lunch, she had to walk everyday some two miles of distance in the scorching heat of midday sun.    At night when her duty hours were over, again she covered another few miles to reach a small ghetto at the end of the town to cook dinner for her father, which he kindly shared with her. Her married elder sister’s place was closer to her workplace and she   provided her lunch. My sandals were doing the free service of protecting her feet during those midday journeys.

“ Why did you take my sandals”? —I asked her point blank.

 “ You have two pairs, I have none, ”pat came the reply.

 True, she had no sandals and didn’t have the money to buy a pair. But I was not to be inconvenienced for that.  I tried to explain her that  "Need doesn't give one  the right to use other’s property." But my valuable speech on capitalistic theory of resource distribution was waste.

“ I know. But I can’t walk barefoot at noon. My feet burns,” she was adamant.

Narsamma was not exactly the paragon of obedience. My landlady routinely shouted at her but did not terminate her from service. Nobody would work as cheap as she! Unfortunately, she was turning into a nuisance for me. I even thought of complaining   to my landlady but knew the futility of that action.

 Strangely there was  also an invisible bond between us. Fate had brought me to her city—a place of northern Karnataka, notorious for its inhospitable weather. I was living alone two thousand kilometers away from home with a teaching job at meager salary.   My father had left the world much earlier leaving me alone to survive in this big bad world.

But Narsamma had both the parents; an alcoholic father who, fully sozzled beat her in the evening but apologized in the morning; and a mother who left her behind while marrying the second time. In the patriarchal society of our great country, both of us were somehow denied of parental protection and had to fend for ourselves though we belonged to different economic strata.

Lodging ate almost 30% of my meager salary.  Being a single woman in early twenties, I needed a decent and secure accommodation. So sacrificing some other needs, I had hired the spacious one room apartment in the heart of the town, near my working place.  Obviously the girl had taken me for a wealthy woman. Often she would request me to allow her sleep in my apartment. I declined. Something—some implicit sociologic reason prevented me from being close to this eleven-year-old. But emotionally she made a niche in my psyche.  I kept my shoes guarded -- away from her reach. But the sight of her blistered feet created blister in my psyche.

Finally I could take it no longer. One evening I took her to the nearby  shoe store —to get a pair of sandals befitting her size. As if to make amends for my cruelty, I had allowed her free choice though inwardly I was worried about the bill. She chose a fancy looking pair - of moderate cost and when she held the pair close to her heart, I felt like making a bargain; of purchasing some pure affection at a throw-away price. Stripped of thirty precious bucks for an entirely avoidable cause, I didn’t feel foolish for the first time in life.  That night I had slept with a rare satisfaction.

Next morning, I had to wake up early. Somebody was knocking. Opening the door I found Narsamma in tears.

 “What’s up? Narsu”.

“They say--- you did not give me.”

“ Who say? What?” I was thoroughly confused.

“ These—the sandals. She showed me the pair  that I gifted her the day before. “They say someone else had given me these” Narsamma pointed her fingers behind her. I saw a couple standing- a man and a woman.

The woman looked a bit embarrassed. As if to hide her annoyance, she started talking to me in an excited voice while the man kept scrutinizing me with piercing eye.  My knowledge of the local language was rudimentary. I could not decode what they said. I stood stupefied, totally confused before that unexpected outburst.

Hema –my landlord’s daughter knew Hindi and finally came to my rescue.

Then I learnt that—Narsamma was beaten. Her brother-in law was sure that somebody –possibly a man had given her the sandals in return of sexual favors; Hence the verification.

That day thanks to my being a woman the girl was saved. The couple had apologized for doubting my good intentions. I too was happy to wash my hand from Narsu’s personal

Fate had different plans. A year later once again I was in. This time the protesters, who doubted me once for using Narsu for ignoble purpose had come seeking my help in;to  convince her. Narasu was playing adamant. A very influential man--  the patron of her brother-in –law’s hooch business had developed a liking for Narsu. He was eminently suitable to be a bridegroom but instead of being euphoric  Narsu had rejected the proposal. The fellow was rich and young. In his early forties the man’s virility was beyond question. In fact he already had half a dozen offspring from his earlier marriage and had the capacity to feed another half a dozen. Moreover, he was ready to give a good bride price. But stupid Narsu had   haughtily equated the proposal to prostitution. She did not understand that few people would be eager to take a poor girl as first wife. Too much of cinema had affected her thinking. I was requested to put some common sense into her brain—to make her obey the brotherly brother-in-law, who was kind enough to provide her free lunch for the last two years. 

“But if the man is already married, it is equivalent to prostitution! Narsu is right.” Words had automatically slipped from my lips.

“So what?” Hema—my interpreter had retorted.

“But when I gave her a pair of shoes they acted so holy!”

 “Cause it was not a good price” Hema was laughing.

“What?

“Price? Can a pair of shoes be a good enough price for a virgin?  This man has given five hundred rupees already to her brother –in-law as loan. More is expected.” Hema retorted back.

 That day the mystery of shoe –episode was finally cleared.  Not that they had any moral objection to her resorting to the age-old dark trade. Narsamma’s mother had been in the profession of prostitution for a while. But a pair of shoes was too little a price for a brand new eleven-year –old virgin.