FOOTSTEPS…
towards a dream.
A Friday morning at the small outlet by a bookstore in Jannusaan in Bahrain — a bunch of young Bahraini girls, the air filled smell of chocolates, smiles, and chatter.
A pair of long black beautiful kohl decked eyes, with thick lashes that flashed in between, had a story to tell.
The niqab-clad girl was no artist, I could say from the way she held a paint brush dipped to a blob, attempting to write something on a blue canvas surface of a shoe. But her gorgeous eyes drenched in a dream, were windows to a passionate heart which hid an art so beautiful — the art of giving.
I stood by her which, I could sense, made her conscious. She smiled, which reflected in her eyes, the rest of the face hid in the black niqab.
“What are you writing?” I asked, and I could see her easing up.
“It is a quote, by Mahmood Darwish (Palestinian poet) which says ‘follow your dreams’,” coy, she replied, smiling.
“And what is your dream?” I think my question startled her.
After few seconds, she said in a crisp voice, “To help someone somewhere, maybe girls like me, who have dreams too, and struggling to achieve them.”
She was confident now and her eyes had a flame, a feel for her clan. I felt her towering high and mighty and had wings under which were umpteen hijab and niqab clad women and girls, and their eyes were hopeful too…
Batool was just one among the many who were working on pairs of Tom shoes. These are just another pairs of foot ware, unless you venture to seek the sparkle in the eyes of these girls.
With signatures of top artists in the country, who spared an hour or two to add a brush stroke to these simple canvas shoes, have made each of them unique, one-its-kind ‘designer’ shoes.
I strolled around the modest display of close to 35 pairs of shoes — ranging from faces, birds, culture, tradition, modern art — you name it and it is all on the canvasJ — shoes!
Artistic brush strokes in acrylic — a profile of a woman’s face with a golden lock on her forehead on one shoe, completing the other side of the face that displays her ear studded with three golden spots — Amina Al Abbasi’s signature marks the pair on a BD65 tag.
‘One foot offers you a big Mac’ :) and the other follows with a pack of French fries, — Yes, ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ and promised myself a junkie lunch at the nearest Mc Donald’s outlet. A slice of watermelon on each, on the next row, was refreshing!
Mughal emperor Shahjahan and his beloved Mumtaz Beegum — as though waiting to be united in a dream, sat far from each other — one on the rack, the other hung on a display wall. Ethnic and unique, the exquisite love-strung pair was costly, BD45 :).
A pair adorned with a fabric painted ballet dancer, the upper torso on one and the rest on the other, stood on the toes, while an artist with a love for vintage fabric pieces decided to go happy with colours on her pair!
A silhouette of birds, sea and trees, depicts the mind of Yousif, a youth who carries the fire of art within. He, through the pairs that he lent his strokes to, was living the memories of his philanthropist mom.
The best that touched my heart was the one that someone had left to dry against a step — shades of blue spreading from a turquoise to ink blue, tip to back. Kept by the side of a water bottle, it reminded me of footsteps, relentlessly walking towards a dream, simply taking a break :).
Price tag on these shoes says BD30 to BD65 — well, one might frown a brow there, right? But I am sure your frown will soon change to a smile, when you realise that every penny that you spend is a brick that adds to building a dream…
(Sale cum expo organised by Ayadi Shop, under the banner of Ayadi Relief Organisation, which leads various relief initiatives in and out of Bahrain.)