The Tale of Two Slippers.

April 24, 2021

M. Sathya Prasad

This remarkable incident happened almost six or seven years ago. I had a pair of ordinary leather slippers that required some mending. It was not that I couldn’t walk around with those impaired slippers, but a bit of mending might perhaps make them last for a few more months – or so I felt. Hence, I decided to visit Loganathan (Logu).

Logu is our neighborhood cobbler, right next street, parallel to mine. He has been running his roadside shop since the time of Hyder Ali Khan. I don’t know why people always refer to Hyder Ali as something antiquated. Why not Tippu Sultan or Akbar or somebody else? If you accidentally bump into Hyder, would you say, “Hi there, Ali!” (which sounds not too polite to address a king) or “Hi there, Hyder” (in which case Hyder might think you are calling him twice)? Anyway, let us get back to our good old Logu.

MBAs ought to take some lessons from Logu. This guy’s working capital is low. Very low. He has an old wooden trunk made out of planks nailed together for safeguarding his capital as well as consumable assets. The trunk permanently dwells in an obscure part of the main road under a big tree where Logu runs his business. Next to him is a fruit vendor and his neighbor on the other side is an eatery – a Muslim fellow who sells snacks made out of meat. Both these people run their sales standing, from small hand-drawn carts. But our Logu spreads a vinyl sheet on the ground and sits on it to conduct his business, under the tree – like Shantiniketan.

Every day, at around 9:00 AM or so, Logu opens his shop. That is the time when people are busy going to work and children to school. Always there would be slippers to be urgently mended or shoes to be immediately polished. A torn slipper on your way to work is a crisis. Logu would be extremely busy, like UN Secretary-General. The trunk box has all that Logu requires – Fixed Assets: a cast-iron anvil, a couple of brushes, an old rag cloth, a hammer, an awl hook, and finally a knife ground out of some broken hacksaw blade; Consumables: some rivets, a few small containers of shoe polish (black, tan, and brown), a spool of string, a box of nails, some leather pieces and a block of paraffin wax to apply on the string. His consumables are not perishable and therefore have a long shelf life – sorry, trunk life.

Nobody cares to break open the trunk box for stealing its contents and considering its obscure placement, the chances of theft are zero. Maybe a thief, while planning to steal at night, might sit on the wooden trunk while rehearsing his looting strategy, but it is highly unlikely for him to mistake Logu’s trunk for some sort of treasure chest brimming with gold and diamonds, just recovered from a Spanish ship sunken two hundred years ago near the Bahamas! If the thief happens to be a bit careless, some projecting nail might also rip open his lungi – literally getting nailed for bad karma. ‘A thief of all days would get his lungi torn one day,’ goes the adage!

So, no security expenses. As well, since the shop is on the pavement side, no rent either! Logu would also charm out an occasional snack or a fruit from his business neighbors – the fruit vendor and the snack seller. Here again, no need for him to spend money on snacks – both vegetarian and non-vegetarian.

I would dare say that Logu’s operational costs are as low as they could be and his return on capital invested could be the highest – I don’t mean the absolute numbers, but the ratios. Logu runs his operations lean. Take for instance manpower. If Logu decides to reduce his workforce, he would have to fire himself. Since the business needs a person of competence to run, he would have to immediately rehire himself back. Logu’s PAT to EBITDA ratio almost touches one since his assets (fully owned by him – anvil, hammer, awl, etc.) neither depreciate nor has he any interest in paying tax. If some chartered accountants were to make a balance sheet for Logu, some of these ratios could be pretty impressive that the accountants could be thrown off-balance. Logu’s sustainability index is also very high. He runs a truly green business – no running water, no electricity, paper-free, etc. Prototype of an MBA’s dream company!

Logu likes me and respects me. He even offers an old wooden crate for me to sit on when I chance to visit him. One would have to watch out for projecting nails while sitting on a crate lest at best the dhoti could get caught and torn or at worst the buttocks could get punctured. Between the two options, I would any day prefer the former. It is far easier to manage life with a torn dhoti than a... You know it all too well. I need not have to belabor this prickly point.

I decided to get my slipper mended and hence visited him. He offered me the usual courtesies, made some pleasant inquiries, took a look at my slippers, and told me that I would have to wait for fifteen minutes since he would have to finish the work of another customer already in waiting. That was not a problem at all for me, especially when a wooden crate was made available for me to carefully adjust myself and sit. While waiting, suddenly wisdom dawned on me, which rarely happens! I decided it would be a good idea to buy an extra pair of slippers for myself, just in case this one becomes terminally ill.

There is sound logic behind this thought. A leather chappal is made out of leather. The creator (Brahma) of the chappal is the original manufacturer. Now my chappal was sick and it had a problem. It required surgery to become normal. Logu (Vishnu) would have to do surgery on the slipper to sustain its useful existence. Once the surgery gets over, while my chappal would have recovered and its life expectancy possibly extended, still there is no guarantee it would perform anywhere close to new. It is always better to have an extra pair just in case this one gives up its ghost while in service to me (Shiva). Unlike Logu, I always believe in a bit of operational redundancy! Makes me feel safer.

I was bare feet but decided to walk to the chappal shop (since Logu had already admitted my slippers into his ICU), which was hardly some twenty-five meters away. Stone’s throw. The shopkeeper saw in me, an aging man wearing an old eight yards dhoti, a simple old cotton shirt, and bare feet. He felt very sympathetic towards me and was at his diplomatic best.

Me: “I have come here to buy myself a pair of slippers”

Him: (Looks at me up and down, my simple attire and bare feet. Then he takes a Hawaii rubber flip-flop.) “Sir. This pair costs twenty rupees. Old stock. The newer one costs five rupees more. This is the cheapest one I have. It would easily last you for two months. The rains are over and the weather is also not too hot. Comes with no guarantee.” The last statement, he told with such confidence that it came out of him as a product feature.

Me: “Any other choice? I could perhaps go a notch higher.”

Him: (Looks at me again and hesitatingly pulls out another pair.) “Sir, this one costs one hundred rupees. Might be a bit expensive for you, but let me work out the math. This one is guaranteed to last for one full year. Made out of genuine, one hundred percent pure PVC material. For comparison, you would have to purchase six of those shown previously for one full year which would set you back by one hundred and twenty rupees. This PVC one is only a hundred rupees and that means you would save yourself at least a cool twenty rupees over the coming year. I know it would be a bit of initial investment for you, but trust me, same time next year you would come here and thank me for saving you twenty rupees.”

Me: “OK. Since your logic makes sense, I would rather take the hundred rupees slipper and save myself twenty rupees over the next three hundred and sixty-five days.” (I am sometimes known to put my foot where my mouth is, but this time, for a change, I decided to put my money where my foot is!)

I came home and told this episode to my wife and we both had a good laugh. I might not be rich (whatever ‘being rich’ means), but surely this shopkeeper took me for some miserable poor wretch and went out of the way to help me save twenty rupees over one full year! It reminded me of a story I read decades ago titled, “The model millionaire” by Oscar Wilde.

Ps.: I still have that PVC chappal. According to the shopkeeper’s calculation, it should be by now, unbeknownst to me, disgorging cash! The chappal repaired by Logu served me faithfully for several months until I gave it away to a street hawker, who was walking bare feet.