By Sujata Rajpal

Three decades ago, in my parents’ house in Chandigarh, once we hovered in quiet delight over a new carpet, beige, strewn with blue floral patterns. It lent a touch of grandeur to our modest living room.

Outside, rain had been falling since morning, turning the streets into a churn of mud and slush. That afternoon, my father’s friends arrived unannounced. They shook off the umbrellas they were carrying, walked in with their shoes like always, settled in with plates of pakoras and steaming cups of tea, talked and laughed and left as casually as they had come.

In their wake remained the evidence of their visit: muddy footprints, dark and unmistakable, stamped across the new blue-and-beige carpet. We stared at them in dismay. Yet, no matter how deeply we resented those marks or how fervently we cursed our guests later, it was unthinkable to ask guests to leave their shoes at the door.

Such a request would have felt like an affront, humiliating, inhospitable and a violation of the unspoken codes of welcome we had grown up with.

Twenty-five years ago, when I made Mysuru my home, the first cultural shock was the practice of removing footwear before entering someone’s house. Up north, such a practice was unheard of.

Even house helpers entered the houses they worked in wearing their flip-flops; they swept, mopped, washed bathrooms and left, their chappals leaving marks on the wet floor.

In Mysuru, at first, we found it offensive when asked to remove our shoes before entering someone’s home. It felt like we were being asked to strip. This was the story I carried back home when I visited my parents during the kids’ summer vacations and folks there listened with astonishment and anguish.

The kids adapted quickly. They never liked wearing shoes anyway. My husband chose his footwear for the evening based on whether he’d be asked to remove shoes.

The issue with me was different. Why buy and wear stylish sandals to someone’s house when they would be left outside and no one would even get to see my stilettos? With my shoes left outside the door, I feared that I might not find them there when we left.

The no-shoes-inside ritual was not just confined to homes but extended to shops, offices and doctors’ clinics as well. There were boards outside saying, ‘Remove Shoes Outside.’ Houses were understandable, but why shops and clinics? Well, it’s common sense, something we took a while to understand.

Removing shoes outside keeps the house clean and hygienic. Dirty bacteria don’t enter the home through footwear. There’s nothing offensive about it. It took time, but we grew to appreciate the habit of taking off shoes outside.

South Indian houses sparkle clean because of this practice. And it’s not just in South India; many countries like the US, Europe, Finland and Japan follow this custom, probably because their homes are carpeted.

We are still not used to walking barefoot at home, so we have separate footwear for indoor use only and another pair of flip flops exclusively for the terrace.  So now, we are literally in the shoes of our adopted city, which we simply adore. And we expect our guests to follow this practice too, though we aren’t bold enough to bluntly tell them to remove their shoes outside the door.

Last month, I hosted a party and knew the women guests would be wearing high heels and sarees and there was no way they’d be taking off their shoes. The thought of grime and bacteria touring my entire floor was mildly horrifying. So, my husband, who rarely meddles in my ways, had an idea. “Keep a few pairs of your footwear outside,” he said. That way, when people arrive, they’ll remove their shoes too. And yes, it worked. Because we humans possess this wonderful mob mentality. If others are doing it, so should we.