Shoestorms galore!

There is a recession all over the globe and everything is being sold at lower prices. But, if there is one item whose price has been rising steadily these days, it should be footwear or shoes in particular.

A pair of shoes or rather, a single shoe had this much power was something which we came to know only during the past few months. From being used as a footwear, shoe has not become the international symbol of protest. If you have someone throwing a shoe at you, it means you are famous and if you throw a shoe at someone who is fairly famous, it means you can be more famous than the person whom you threw your shoe at! How else would you justify the number of show throwing incidents that we have come across in the past 6 months?

It all started with George Bush being thrown a shoe at in Iraq by Al- Baghdadhia TV journo Muntadar al- Zeidi while Bush was touring Iraq, his last official trip as President of US. Muntadar threw both his shoes at Bush one after the other and Bush was smart enough to evade both of them! There are many who feel Bush deserved much more than being thrown shoes at for whatever he did in Iraq, but that will open a thread for a completely different debate! While Bush did not take it very seriously (he even joked that the only thing he knew about the incident was the size of the shoe) but Muntadar was extremely serious about what he did. He was absolutely non remorseful and is currently serving his jail sentence for whatever he did.

The World thought that it was a novel form of protest and probably would remain a one off incident but 2 months later another statesman had to face a similar situation in another country- this time around it was Chinese PM Wen Jiabao who was the victim. The incident took place in February 2009 while Jiabao was giving a talk at Cambridge University and it was German national, Martin Jahnke who hurled a shoe at Wen since Martin felt that Wen was lying all through his speech!

Elections in India means it is time for "Jhootha maaro" session! Till now candidates and political parties used to figuratively hurl shoes at each other. But, in 2009, probably inspired by what happened in Iraq and UK, we are having people (the common man, this time) literally throwing shoes at politicians. If it was P Chidambaram who was the victim first, 2 days later it was Naveen Jindal. Jarnail Singh hurled a shoe at Chidambaram as a mark of protest for CBI acquitting Jagadeesh Tytler and Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 Anti- Sikh Riots case. Jarnail Singh being the journalist that he is, probably thought that his shoe is mightier than his Pen ala Muntadar.

Rajmal Singh Saharan, a retired school principal, hurled a shoe at Naveen Jindal, sitting MP at Kurukshetra. The reason cited was protest against the policies of the Congress. Thanks to all these incidents, around the world, every politician and leader worth his salt is worried as to who is going to be the next target!

Shoes have thus acquired that coveted crown of the most commonly used to object of protest. I dont think the day is far away when political rallies and press conferences will be convened on the condition that none of the attendees should be wearing shoes! It probably is also time for people to come together and form groups and associations like "The International Show Throwers Association" or "Association of Shoe Throwers as mark of protest" or something like that!

If at all there is anybody who is happy with this turn of events, it could probably be the shoe manufacturers and retailers...Let us look forward to more such "Shoe" storms in future :-)