Heel, girls!

Why do TV shows feature women in impossibly high heels when flats are all the rage in real life?

As I binged on the first three episodes of the new season of The Morning Show, I was struck by one thing. Every woman on the show was depicted in sky-high stilettos. Now I can understand on-air anchors (Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon) being portrayed wearing vertiginous heels but I have been around in enough TV studios to know that production staff — who are on their feet all day — tend to wear flats, or even sneakers, to get through their day. So, this struck a rather jarring note, to say the least, in a show that purported to show the real world of morning television. 

And after that, I could not stop noticing the incongruous use of stilettos in other shows as well. The new season of The Split — a British legal show set in a firm of family lawyers — had Nicola Walker wearing 5 inch heels as she teetered around her office, attended depositions, went to court, and then to dinner with her family. No woman could survive a day like that in those heels in real life. In fact, if you took a walk around the Inns of Court in London, you would be hard pressed to find a single female lawyer in heels like these. They know better than to wreck their knees and backs by balancing precariously on heels all day. 

Nearer home, there were the ladies of Four More Shots Please. Dressed in the height of fashion, they vamped it up for their poster wearing — yes, you’re right! — slinky stilettos. And yet, if you were to look at the demographic they represent, you will find that in real life they are more likely to be rocking Converse sneakers, ballet flats or even funky wedges. Stilettos are seen as being as stale as last week’s bread by this generation. 

In fact, one of the reasons why the new reboot of Sex and The City, called And Just Like That, was considered out of tune with the times was because Sarah Jessica Parker and her co-stars seemed to live in their stilettos as they traipsed through the streets of New York City. How very 1990s, they critics scoffed, surely the ladies should have embraced the Zeitgeist’s new-found love for flats by now? The fact that they were stuck in the fashion mores of the decade in which they came of age, aged them much more than the wrinkles they had Botoxed away. 

The truth of the matter is that stilettos have had their day. A small minority of women may still favour them — think Melania and Ivanka Trump — but for the most part, women have tired of their charms. These days Hollywood stars take pride in wearing comfortable footwear on the red carpet. Julia Roberts even famously went barefoot on the tapis rouge at the Cannes Film Festival, on protest at some women being denied entry in flats the previous year. 

It’s safe to say that Cannes won’t be repeating that mistake any time soon. And nor will female stars feel obliged to slip on a pair of stilettos to meet some unspoken standard of grooming. So why TV shows feel obliged to keep up the pretence of stilettos being integral to female glamour is, frankly, beyond me. 

Heel, girl!

Are you sure you want to clamber on to those sky-high stilettoes?

I must confess that I was among those astounded to see Melania Trump perched atop a pair of vertiginous stilettoes as she departed the White House with her husband, Donald, on a trip to visit those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Was this really the right kind of footwear to wear to a disaster zone, I mused on Twitter.

To be fair to the American First Lady, she ditched the heels inflight and alighted in Texas wearing a pair of spotless white tennis shoes. But the whole brouhaha about Melania’s footwear, with social media going into meltdown and fashion glossies weighing in with their verdict on her style choices, reminded me yet again that when it comes to women, shoes are rarely simply shoes. They always carry a subliminal message within them, sending out signals with every clack of the heels or thump of the boot.

Five-inch heels don’t just tell the world that you have a high pain threshold, they also indicate that you don’t ever need to use public transport. A sensible kitten heel (like the ones the British Prime Minister Theresa May favours) marks you out as someone who values both comfort and style. A no-nonsense boot with a chunky heel tells you that its owner doesn’t mess about. And flats are the choice of a woman who stands tall in her own estimation, who doesn’t need a few extra inches to boost her self-esteem. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Shoes tell a story. Shoes are an essential part of your self-image, the narrative you are trying to establish about yourself. And the story is not just about who you are but what you want to be; it’s not just about how you project yourself to the world, but also about how the world sees you.

Speaking for myself, I always feel faintly perturbed when I see those all-pervasive images of the Trump women – Melania, Ivanka, Tiffany – always balanced perfectly on those sky-high heels, walking with almost balletic grace, presenting a picture of Goddess-like perfection that is impossible for mere mortals like us to achieve. These women are far above us – both literally and metaphorically – as they sway gently along, their feet floating five inches above the ground.  

How on earth do they do that? It must be hell on the soles of their feet, their bunions, their knees and their backs. And yet, there they are, day in and day out, walking past the cameras, working those ridiculously high heels, smiling and waving as if their feet weren’t killing them, one step at a time.

And it’s not just the Trump triumvirate either. Who can forget the sight of that Stiletto Slayer formerly known as Kate Middleton and now styled as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, stomping through Delhi and Mumbai during her State visit to India, her feet forever encased in high heels that seemed to have been grafted on to her soles? It didn’t matter if she was visiting a slum, hanging out with school kids or trying her hand at cricket; whatever she did, wherever she went, the heels stayed on.

As if these images weren’t enough, popular culture is also teeming with women, who live their lives in their stilettoes. There’s Téa Leoni in Madam Secretary, flying off to trouble spots all over the world in her high heels. There’s Sophia Vergara in Modern Family, who slips on her stilettoes to cook breakfast for the family. And then, there’s our very own Priyanka Chopra who hunts terrorists in Quantico while working a five-inch heel.

In real life, too, I know far too many women who spend their working day balancing on high heels as if their life depended on it. Ask them why and they will explain that they find their heels ‘empowering’. Those extra inches enable them to look their male colleagues and bosses in the eye and give them an extra fillip of confidence. They feel more put together, more in control, more business-like and professional when they are in their heels.

And who knows. Maybe they are right. What does a woman like me, who lives in her ballet flats, know about stuff like that?

But when they start telling me how ‘comfortable’ they are in their five-inch heels, and how they can even run in them, I’m afraid I reach the limits of my credulity. Sorry ladies, but I’m not buying that. Show me a woman who swears that her stilettoes don’t leave her in a world of pain at the end of the day, and I will show you a liar. Even the superwoman, Catherine, slips a silicone pad into her shoes to lessen the strain on her soles as she goes through her royal engagements. So, don’t tell me those shoes don’t hurt.

But such is the insidious grip that these objects of torture have on the female imagination that even today among the first rites of passage a young girl goes through is buying her first pair of heels. She teeters around proudly while her mother (who really should know better by now) watches proudly. Her girl is finally blossoming into a woman – and part of being a woman is that your feet hurt all the time.

How I wish someone would take these little girls aside and tell them it doesn’t have to be like that. Dancing in heels may make them feel glamorous and grown-up. But running in flats, that’s what is really empowering.

Best foot forward

A flat-out refusal to heels is the way to go, ladies

What would you do if you turned up at work and were told to change out of your flat shoes and wear a pair that had a two-inch (at least) heel? Of course, if you are a man then the question doesn't apply because you would never be asked to do anything so silly in the first place. But if you are a woman and work, say, in a corporate office, a hotel, a restaurant or even an airline, would you accede to such a request because it was what was expected of female employees?

Would you trot off and find a pair with a heel and slip it on meekly? Or would you stand up for your right to wear any kind of shoe you bloody well like?

I only ask because a 27 year old called Nicola Thorp found herself in exactly this predicament when she reported for her temp job as a receptionist at the London office of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Her employment agency said that her flat shoes were unacceptable. She had to go off and buy a pair of shoes with heels at least two inches high and change into them. Thorp refused. So, the agency sent her home and refused to pay her for the day.

But while the rest of us would have vented on Twitter and called it a day, Thorp was made of sterner stuff. She launched a petition asking that it be made illegal to ask women to wear high heels at the workplace. In 48 hours the petition has chalked up 110,000 signatures, enough to get the subject debated in the House of Commons and a law passed so that no employer in the future can get away with such sexist demands of its female workforce.

Such strict grooming requirements are relatively rare in India. But a few years ago, when Delhi's new international airport opened, with its long walkways from check-in to boarding, I was appalled to see the female ground staff of one particular airline (which shall remain nameless) negotiating that distance on heels.

Why, I asked one young woman, was she wearing heels? Surely, flats made much more sense given that she probably chalked up 10 to 15 kilometers on a regular shift.

Yes, she agreed. But the uniform rules stated that female employees must wear heels, so she had no choice in the matter.

I was so appalled by this that I wrote a column the next week (Running in heels, Brunch, August 2010) about how unfair it was to discriminate against women employees in this manner. Men could go about their jobs in comfortable shoes, while the women had to teeter around on high heels. How was this fair?

A few months later, when I travelled by that airline again, I found that the ladies were in flats. The uniform rules had been changed. And while I wouldn't dream of claiming credit for that change, I would like to believe that my voice among the chorus of complaints mattered.

See, that's the problem. Too many of us are only too happy to follow the rule (unwritten or spelt out) that to look properly 'groomed' women must wear high heels. So much so that we have even conditioned ourselves to believe that we are not really ready to face the world until we have a pair of heels on to bolster both our height and our self-confidence.

Not that I am one to talk. I spent my entire 20s and my early 30s in heels even though there was no dress code that forced me to do so. I voluntarily embraced this world of pain, telling myself (and my aching feet) that this was what being a successful professional was all about: looking the part. It didn't help that I was short, so I needed the morale boost (quite literally) that high heels provided.

I, at least, had the excuse that I was short. But even my tall willowy friends embraced heels, simply because that was what you did. You wore heels to work and high heels to party because -- or so we were conditioned to believe -- that made us look more attractive.

It was only once I was comfortable in my own skin (and very uncomfortable in my heels) in my mid 30s that I finally had the confidence to vote with my feet and simply say no to heels. I stood tall enough in my own estimation. And I didn't care if I fell short of the beauty standards imposed on women across the world.

Today, I am happy to report that the rebellion against high heels is apace. Earlier this month Julia Roberts walked barefoot on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. This was noteworthy because last year at Cannes some women had been turned away from the red carpet because they were wearing flats. The dress code, they were told sternly, specified heels.

Well, try telling that to Julia, guys! She couldn't give a hoot as she threw off her shoes and sashayed across the red carpet in bare feet, giving the proverbial finger to the powers-that-be at Cannes in the process.

At this point, I am sure that there are many women out there who are preparing to mail or tweet me about they feel more powerful, even more empowered, with their heels on. Okay, ladies, just drop me a line five years down the line when your backs are whacked and your bunions have set your feet aflame and tell me how powerful and empowered you feel now. And then, we'll talk.

Just say no

To the insane standards of ‘beauty’ that all women are expected to aspire to

By now, you've probably heard of the idiots at the Cannes Film Festival who refused to allow women who were not wearing heels on to the red carpet. And also, that the ladies who were turned away included a woman who had had part of her foot amputated. It beggars belief, doesn't it?

I would have thought that all those female actresses who take such pride in calling themselves 'actors' to strike a blow against sexism, would have been up in arms at this kind of sexist stupidity. But bar Emily Blunt, who said that the decision was 'very disappointing' (you don't say!) none of the women in attendance at the Festival seemed unduly perturbed. Of if they were, in fact, incensed, they did a marvellous job of hiding their outrage.

Instead, it was business as usual at the Festival, as the ladies, primped and polished to within an inch of their lives, paraded the red carpet in low necklines and high heels, teetering past the banks of cameras, precariously perched on five-inch stilettos.

How amazing would it have been if they had ditched the vertiginous shoes in solidarity with their flats-wearing sisters, and turned up instead in comfortable mules to do red carpet duty? I would have loved to see if the Heels Police at Cannes would dare turn away Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore, or for that matter, Emily Blunt herself, if they were the ones in flats.

But no, even that small act of rebellion was denied us. Instead, all the actresses at Cannes slipped into their sky-high heels quite ignoring the fact that they would have stood much taller if they had opted for flats instead.

Frankly, I am disappointed. Not just with the lack of protest at Cannes but by the fact that women are still expected to adhere to societally-imposed norms of how they should and should not look. They must be groomed. They must be well-dressed. They mustn't look their age. They must dye their hair. They must be thin. They must wax all that unsightly bodily hair off. And, of course, they must wear high heels.

Who made up these rules, anyway? And why, way into the 21st century, are we adhering to these antiquated notions of how women must present themselves to the world? Why do we not rail against the notion that it behoves the female of the species to dress in a way that appeals to the male gaze? Why do we accept that we must suffer in order to be beautiful? Why should pain and discomfort be the price we pay for being admired?

I wish more women would ask these questions. And that they would at least try to look for some answers. But rather than do that, we fall into the Beauty Trap.

We book monthly wax appointments. And the body parts which must never be allowed to stay hairy increases every year. It started off with underarms, arms and legs. Then, backs and stomachs were insidiously coopted into the no-hair area.  And now even our erogenous zones must be completely hairless so that we look like pre-pubescent girls rather than grown women.

Even beautiful women are not exempt from the no-hair regulation. Remember the media storm when megastar Julia Roberts turned up at a film premiere in a sleeveless dress, and raised her arm to wave at her fans, allowing them to feast their eyes on her long, luxuriant, underarm hair. You would have thought she had murdered a cat given the violent reactions to that fleeting glimpse of hair.

Waxing is just the beginning of our extreme-maintenance regimes, though. In addition, we are expected to never go above a certain weight. Cue, extreme diets that exclude major food groups and a punishing exercise regime to get that trim stomach and taut butt. If we fall short, well then, we get Spanxed as punishment. And it is punishment, as anyone who has ever attempted to squeeze into that instrument of torture will attest.

If you attain a certain age, then the anti-ageing industry targets you with a vengeance, with its arsenal of anti-ageing creams, potions, lotions, serums, and what have you. God forbid that you get a single line on your face, be it laugh lines around your eyes of frown lines on your forehead. No, no, no. They must be erased by all means known to medicine, from laser treatments and glycolic peels to Botox and Restylene.

That's not counting the Fashion Nazis. You know, the ones you insist that you remain on-trend no matter what. You must move from jeggings to boyfriend jeans and back again. Saris only work with trendy blouses (if you don't want to look like a behenji). No open-toed sandals unless you've had a pedicure. And palazzo pants are out this season (for God's sake, you in that crummy T-shirt, do keep up!). And then, of course, there is the Heels Police, to treat you like a criminal if you choose to wear a comfortable pair of shoes instead of something that wouldn't look out of place in an S&M fantasy film.

Word to the wise. Do not feed this beast. When even someone as gorgeous as Aishwarya Rai can fall foul of its standards (especially when she is carrying a little baby weight), what chance do you and I have? Back away quietly and no one gets hurt.

Take my advice. Just say no. To all of the above. All you have to lose are your special creams, your stilettos and that annual subscription to that fashion glossy. In their stead, you will rediscover your self-esteem and self-respect. Now, that's a trade-off worth its price in fluffy slippers.

Hell on heels

There is nothing quite as comforting – and comfortable – as embracing the world of flats

I don’t know any little girl who doesn’t do it. Keep a look-out until Mummy is safely out of sight, and then quickly step into her high heels and totter around the house, balancing precariously on them. Needless to say, this doesn’t ever end well. Either she gets too ambitious, picks up speed, and lands right on her butt (or worse, face) or Mummy catches her in the act (yet again!) and gives her a right royal bollocking. Either way, it ends in tears.

But that early frisson of excitement, the thrill of trying something forbidden, of getting a taste of the adult world, never really leaves us, does it? It hides deep within our psyche and makes a pair of high heels seem like the most desirable thing ever. They become a totem of adulthood, a symbol of sophistication, an emblem of elegance, a sign of being all grown up.

So, it’s not surprising that as we grow up, there’s nothing we want more than our own pair of high heels. There’s something so ineffably adult about them that we just know that slipping them on will make us feel in command. But every time we go shopping with our moms and head inexorably for the high-heel shoes, we are herded off in the direction of sensible flats. And with each such episode, the longing within us just grows and grows.

But no matter how much we beg, plead, cry or cajole, those high-heel shoes remain tantalisingly out of grasp. We will get them when we grow up, we are told sternly, and not a moment sooner. Little girls simply do not get to wear high heels with shoes – and that is that. (Unless, of course you are Tom Cruise’s pampered princess, Suri, and even then it sets off an avalanche of angry comments in the media.)

Which is why slipping on your very first pair of high heel shoes is both a matter of joy and a rite of passage. I am pretty sure every woman remembers her first pair of high heels: where she bought them; how they looked; what she paired them with; how they made her feel.

I certainly do. My first pair was bought after an exhaustive trawl through all the shoes shops of Calcutta’s New Market. In black patent leather, accessorised with a little bow, they came with a very modest two-inch heel. They were bought for a family wedding but over the next couple of years I wore them to death, abandoning them only when they quite literally fell apart.

Since then, I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for high-heel shoes, stocking up on stilettos, wedges, kitten heels, platforms and whichever other heel-style was in fashion. Such was the intensity of my love affair with heels that I don’t think I possessed a pair of flats in my entire twenties, if you exclude the sneakers that were bought as a token nod to the need to exercise (one of these days, I kept promising myself).

So, I get the appeal of high heels all right. I agree with all those shoe designers who claim that heels don’t just make you stand taller, they also improve your posture, and give you a sexy wiggle for good measure. And yes, I see the point when women claim that they feel more confident, sexy, elegant and put together in heels.

But, I ask you ladies, at what cost? I can’t be the only one who suffers excruciating backaches after I’ve spent the day teetering on high heels. And I certainly can’t be alone in having my knees give up on me after decades of balancing four – or even five – inches above the ground.

Which is why – unlike those of my sex who choose style over comfort and are willing to painfully mince through life rather than give up their high-heel addiction – I have decided to vote with my feet and embrace the world of flats.

But though my love affair with heels is now over, I still have an entire closet of shoes to remind me of my past passion. Some of the more hellish ones have been given away to those with a higher pain threshold than mine but some still live on the back of my wardrobe, skulking darkly like ghosts of painful evenings past.

And every now and then, when I look at them, I wonder: what on earth was I thinking?

There’s the Christian Louboutin pair in blue velvet with silver sequins that I have worn maybe three times in my life (and only when I was sure I would be sitting down for the most part). There are the black stilettos from Jimmy Choo that I bought in a moment of madness and wore only once (slipping them off at the end of the evening to hobble across the 500 yards to my hotel room). The sky-high boots from Ferragamo which have me sobbing in pain every time I walk in them. (I could howl with rage when I think what I could have done with all that money spent on those lovely but utterly useless shoes!)

But I am happy to report that my days as a fashion victim are behind me. Now, I am no longer willing to buy any shoes that don’t work for the purpose for which they were designed: walking. I refuse to put on a pair that turns me into a helpless creature who can’t even negotiate a staircase, let alone a cobbled road. I am damned if I will wear a pair that doesn’t allow me to kick ass, or even haul ass at the first sight of trouble. I refuse to allow high heels to infantalise me, to turn me into a helpless, near-immobilised creature who can at best take baby steps.

It helps, of course, that the world of fashion has embraced the flat shoe as well. These days, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing comfortable, no-heel shoes. Ballet shoes are all the rage, and you can choose from every label of note, from the trendy Repetto to the more workmanlike Marks and Spencer. Loafers are perfect for a day on the run, and every label is churning them out. And if you want to go all ethnic, there is always the humble Kohlapuri or the leather jooti. (Though, I’m afraid fit-flops simply don’t do it for me.)

Now that flat shoes have finally found their moment in the fashion sun, what does it mean? Does it prove that women are finally growing up? That we are no longer naive enough or suggestible enough to fall victim to the fashion conspiracy that tries to sell us shoes that we can’t walk – let alone run – in? And more importantly, does it mean that we are finally refusing to seek validation from men on how we look? (Show me a man who says he prefers a woman in flats rather than high heels, and I will show you a liar.)

Going by the sheer number of women tottering about in high heels, that day is probably still some distance in the future. But I can’t help feeling that we are finally moving in the right direction – and some of us are even doing it in sensible flats.

Footnote

My favourite flats

* Knee-high black boots from Furla: Bought in a punishing New York blizzard, they have done me proud every winter, with their easy mix of elegance and comfort.

* Salmon pink loafers from Tods: Okay, they were a bit pricey but given that they are neutral enough to go with everything they have more than paid for themselves.  

* Leopard-print suede ballet pumps from L.K. Bennet: Anybody who thinks flats can never be sexy, should get a load of these. They rock!

Ho, Ho, Ho

What I would like Santa to get me for Christmas...

Sometimes I wonder just how stupid we were as kids to actually believe in Santa Claus. Wasn’t it obvious that the fat Indian man (who looked suspiciously like Uncle Chatterjee from next door) with the fake white beard couldn’t possibly have travelled down from the North Pole in his reindeer-driven sleigh? Did we ever stop to think why every shop we visited while Christmas shopping had a Santa Claus who looked completely different from the one before? Or did we just wilfully ignore all these alarm bells because we needed to live in a world where Santa came around annually bearing gifts that we had longed for the entire year.

I like to think it was the latter. And so, in the same child-like spirit, I decided to compile a list of all the things that I would like Santa to bring me this year. So here it is: my own Christmas wish list (in no particular order of importance)

* A longer attention span. I’d like to revert to the days when I could watch a movie without feeling tempted to tweet my views about it half an hour into the show. I’d like to read a book with stopping to dip into Facebook to see what my friends are up to. And I’d really like to be able to finish my writing without breaking off every 15 minutes to ‘research’ something on the Net.

* An internet connection that times out automatically. I often wonder how people procrastinated in the days before the Internet was invented. How did they waste time before the Google search engine came along? And by ‘people’, of course, I mean myself. I have lost count of the number of hours I have wasted on news sites, on following threads that lead me into the darker corners of the Net, and looking through picture albums of people I barely know. And given my complete and utter lack of self-discipline, the only thing that will free me is a net connection that turns itself off when I am unable to do so. 

* High heels that I can walk in without throwing out my back, crippling my knees, and mutilating my feet. Yes, I know every woman always insists that her stilettos are comfortable enough to run in; but believe me, she lies. The pair of high heels – and I mean really high heels – that both look and feel good are yet to be invented. Which is why I am pinning my hopes on Santa.

* A machine that exercises all my muscle groups for me. Come on, admit it. You’d like one too. Just imagine the joy of lying supine, reading a book or listening to music, strapped to a contraption that stretches your hamstrings, tones up your abdomen, tightens your bum, and elongates your legs, without your ever having to make any effort whatsoever. Bliss!

* A new neck: Yes, this one has given me great service for many decades but truth be told, it is beginning to look a bit tired now. So tired, that it can barely keep my double chins in place. (And if I am wishing for things, how about a brand-new jaw-line as well, all taut and jowl-free? And all the hair I have lost since my 20s, in its original black colour.)

* A magic carpet that whisks me away to Venice every January. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Why January? Isn’t it cold as hell? And raining? And flooding, thanks to the acqua alta? Yes, right on all counts. And yet, that is the month that Venice appears most magical to me. There are no hordes of tourists jostling you aside in Piazza San Marco. The streets are deserted so that you can actually gaze on undisturbed at the many architectural gems carelessly displayed on them. And the hotel rates are, relatively at least, affordable.

* A device that wipes my memory clean of all my favourite books so that I can discover them anew. I can still remember the joy I felt when I read my first Elizabeth George or Donna Leon. I had to restrain myself from calling up all my friends late at night and sharing my discovery with them. It’s been a long time since I felt that way about a book (the last time was when I devoured Hilary Mantel’s marvellous Wolf Hall in one big gulp) and I miss that slow burn of excitement that comes with stumbling upon a bright new literary star.

* A time machine to whisk me back to my college classroom. All those great writers and poets I read then in my English literature course – William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, John Donne, T.S. Eliot – would make so much more sense to me now that I have lived a little.

How? Why? What?

An examination of some of the abiding mysteries of life

You know all those abiding mysteries of life that people lie awake and think about? As in: how did the world come into being? Why are we here? What is it all about? Is there such a being as God? Well, I don’t really waste much sleep over them. Instead, I am constantly mystified by people and the baffling things some of them get up to.

I mean, how do you explain the fact that there are some women who apply toner after cleansing their faces and before moisturising? Who are these women and how do they have the time – not to mention the energy and the patience – to undertake this three-step cleansing routine twice a day? I feel incredibly pleased with myself for smearing on a spot of sunscreen in the morning and managing to clean my teeth before collapsing into bed. And there are apparently women out there who actually manage to not just cleanse and moisturise, but also ‘tone’ their skin? I know these mythical creatures must exist (or else how would you explain the sales of toner?) even though I have never met any of them. But I can’t help being mystified by their devotion to cleansing rituals nonetheless.

Of late, I have been puzzling over another abiding mystery of our time. Who are all these women who find Fifty Shades of Grey (not to mention Fifty Shades Darker and whatever the other Fifty-something book is called) so ‘erotic’ that they are have turned it into the best-selling title of all time, outselling even J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series? No matter where you go these days – the bookstore, the supermarket, the grocery shop, the airport – you find a wall of blue-grey covers staring balefully at you, daring you to pick up your daily dose of porn in full view of the public. But even if you ignore the troublesome issue of the mainstreaming of pornography as it were, how do you explain that enough people find this kind of puerile writing sexy and exciting? As someone who has tried reading the book and given up after a 100 pages (yes, even before the ‘sexy’ bits begin), I certainly can’t. How could anyone find this risible prose remotely arousing? And yet, astonishingly enough, they do.

And while we are on the subject of kinky sex, are there really any women out there who are applying ‘whitening’ and ‘tightening’ creams to their lady bits in the hope of improving their sex life? Actually, on second thought, even if these creatures do exist, I really don’t want to know.

As the cliché goes, it takes all sorts to make up the world but even so, there are some people – and some kinds of behaviour – that remain unfathomable (to me, at least). Those folks, for instance, who actually enjoy getting up at the crack of dawn, pulling on their sneakers, and pounding the pavements until the sun comes up, and then spend the day banging on about their ‘endorphin high’. If you ask me, never mind their hamstrings, it’s their heads that need examining.

Then, there are those strange creatures that our fashion glossies write for. You know the ones I mean. Those who are happy to junk their wardrobes every few months or so and run off to stock up on the ‘new season’ look. Those who spend hours stuffing tissue paper into the sleeves of their jackets and dresses before packing them so that they don’t crease (have these people not heard of a steam-iron? Or laundry services?). Or those who treat a summer vacation as an excuse to exfoliate, wax and embark on a new diet.

And don’t get me started on those intrepid souls who dare to negotiate the perils of airport check-ins and air travel in vertigo-inducing high heels. Do these women have no pain threshold? Have the soles of their feet no sensation left after years of systematic abuse? Or have they been brainwashed by Fifty Shades of Junk to believe that pain equals pleasure?

There are many things that mystify me when I check into a hotel but top of the list is the horror known as the mini-bar. No matter where in the world I am, the prices listed on the mini-bar list leave me dumbstruck. Who can possibly afford to pay these rates? And yet, apparently, there are people who do just that. Drop the equivalent of a cool Rs 500 for a miniature bottle of whiskey. Spend around Rs 150 for a bottle of water. Or Rs 200 bucks for a packet of crisps. Or Rs 300 for a packet of peanuts (I’m sorry, but that’s just plain nuts!)

While we are on the subject of crisps, though, who are these people who can open a packet and then just stop at one, two or even ten? Do they really exist? Or are they just the stuff of urban legend?

And don’t even get me started on those who can stop at the last chapter of a spy thriller or a good murder mystery, slip in a book-mark, turn off the lights and then go off to sleep. Don’t they want to know how the damn thing ends? How can anyone drift off to sleep without reading the denouement, especially when it is just a few pages away? Quite honestly, it beggars belief.

My kind of woman

How can you tell whom you are likely to be best mates with?

There are some questions that always pop up when a group of young girls gets together. Who is your kind of man? What qualities do you look for in a guy? How would you like your future husband to be?

The answers are often as hackneyed as the questions. The words ‘tall, dark and handsome’ have been known to be uttered. As have ‘sensitive and caring’. A sense of humour is always touted as a desirable quality. And everyone wants a well-educated, even ambitious, man though only a few will admit to looking out for a rich one.

I guess all of us start out with a mental checklist against which we judge any potential mates. It is another matter that this checklist is the first thing to go out of the window when true love strikes. Then, it doesn’t matter if he stands a couple of inches shorter than you or how deep his pockets are. It doesn’t matter if his jokes are unfunny and he doesn’t have a hint of a six pack. And it certainly doesn’t matter that he doesn’t look like one of those pin-ups you idolised throughout your teenage years.

Once you’ve fallen in love, even the most unsuitable of creatures begins to look like your ideal man. And no matter what he is or how he is, he magically metamorphoses into your kind of man.

But then, that’s love for you. It has the knack of turning the world on its head. It has a way of making everything you once believed in seem futile and foolish. As the song goes: “I stand alone without belief; the only truth I know is you.”

Perhaps that is why I have never wanted to define – not even in my head – who my kind of man would be. At some subliminal level I guess I always believed that when I met him, I would know.

But women – ah, now we’re talking. I’ve always been very clear in my head about who my kind of woman is. (And just so we’re clear, by that I mean the kind of woman I could be friends with; not one whom I dream of having babies with.)

It all began – as things tend to do – in school. It didn’t take me long to realise that I wasn’t really cut out for sport and rough-housing of any kind. So hanging out with the sporty, tomboy types was out of the question. Instead, all potential friends had to pass what I called the ‘Do you read Enid Blyton?’ test and only those who had read everything from the Secret Seven to the Famous Five and the Mallory Towers series were in with a chance.

As I grew older, this test was further refined. Anyone who dissed Georgette Heyer as just another romance writer was off my radar in less time than it took to say Beau Brummel. Later still, all those who regarded Ayn Rand as the Fountainhead of all wisdom got short shrift. And more recently, Dominick Dunne has become my litmus test for People Like Us (or, more accurately, People Whom I Like).

But books are just the beginning. The tests of incipient friendship extend far beyond them. Take bread, for instance. No, I mean that. Take bread. Go on, take it. Break off a morsel, slather on some butter, or dip it in olive oil, and plop it into your mouth. Um, delicious, isn’t it?

What? You don’t eat bread? Or carbs of any kind, except on the weekend? Oh well, it was nice knowing you, but this kind of abstention spells goodbye in my book.

In fact, truth be told, food can be a landmine littered with the corpses of would-be friends. You want to share a salad? A salad? Seriously? You can’t even commit to an entire portion of lettuce leaves and rocket finished off with a touch of balsamico? Sorry, but that’s a deal-breaker for me. (Now, sharing a dessert – a nice, gooey, chocolaty concoction – that I can totally get on board with.)

Okay, you got me. I like a woman who enjoys her high-calorie treats, who doesn’t shy away from a bit of pasta or a slice of pizza. I like a woman who has an appetite and is not afraid to feed it. Though it can get a tad annoying if she stays startlingly thin at the end of all that face-stuffing.

And then, there are those women whom I know I would simply never get along with in a million years even if they shared my reading lists and my love for a perfectly crisp French fry. These are just some of the categories that come to mind:

·         The kind of women who wear high heels on long-haul flights. You see them at airports all the time, teetering on laughably high stilettos, mincing along on shoes that look more like torture instruments. These are the women who would puncture the evacuation slide if the plane ever had to make an emergency landing. You want to steer clear of them.

·         Women who are rude to waiters. Though, to be fair, this one applies to men as well.

·         Women who treat their domestic staff badly. It doesn’t matter how beautifully you behave in company if you go back and terrorise your house help. If you can’t treat the people who clean and cook for you – and look after your children for good measure – with respect (if not love) then what hope is there for the rest of us?

Running in heels

Is it too much to ask for uniformity when it comes to uniforms?

Most people find this a bit strange, but I’ve always had a particular fondness for uniforms. There is something very liberating, it seems to me, in never having to worry about what you should wear every morning. No agonising about putting together an ensemble that works; no anxiety about repeating an outfit too often; and no worries about getting accessories to match. You wake up in the morning knowing exactly what you are going to wear that day, right down to your shoes and belt.

What’s not to like? You don’t have to think about your wardrobe choices so your mind is freed up to concentrate on things that matter. There is no heartburn because other people around you are dressed so much better. There is no danger of being jealous of their designer togs or superior taste. And there is no question of updating your look every season to stay on the right side of the fashion police.

Even though as school-kids we’ve all done our best to subvert the prevalent dress code – hitching up our skirts, loosening ties, leaving buttons undone, and worse – I now tend to look back on my uniform-wearing days with nostalgia. In fact, I’m even a tad jealous of those who get to wear uniforms on a daily basis at work, which takes out all the stress of getting ready every morning.

Of course, in some curious way, we all devolve uniforms of our own in the course of our professional lives. In fact, such is the stereotyping that results that sometimes you can tell what a person does simply by seeing how he or she dresses.

Handloom sari, kohlapuri chappals, big red bindi and oversized jhola mark the NGO types. Khadi kurta-pyjama, with or without waistcoat, denotes the Indian politician. Tight white trousers, printed chiffon top, oversized sunglasses and designer handbag is how you can tell the ladies who lunch. Black or navy suit, white shirt with monochrome tie is the accepted dress code in the financial sector.

And so it goes. In one way or another, we all have a uniform we consciously or unconsciously adopt in our working lives. But some of us are lucky enough to have one imposed upon us, which takes away all the angst of working it out for ourselves.

In that sense, uniforms are the great equalisers of the work place. And even when they do denote rank or mark out hierarchies, they do so in an entirely transparent, almost democratic way. Nobody can show off how much money or style they have because everybody has to dress in exactly the same way. In a uniform, we are all equal.

Or so, I thought anyway, until my illusions were rudely ripped away on a visit to Delhi’s swanky new airport terminal, T3, widely touted as the largest of its kind in India (or is it Asia? Sorry, I never can keep up with all the hyperbole). But I can confirm that it is certainly very large – in fact, it is very, very large indeed. So much so that you could easily have to walk a couple of kilometres from the check-in counters to your boarding gate.

But while that is punishing enough, remember that while you will only make this trek once, the airline ground staff will make this journey several times over in the course of a single shift. But while the men will stride swiftly in comfortable, flat, rubber-soled shoes, the women will have to do this in heels.

Yes, heels are mandatory for all women who work as ground staff on airlines. So, they have no choice but to mince along on their heels, trying hard not to wince as their knees and backs groan under the pressure, even as their male counterparts whiz past them in their sensible shoes.

To add insult to incipient injury (I wonder whether the airlines will step up and pay their medical bills when their backs and knees give up on them) the women also have to suffer the rigours of an Indian summer in tights, while the men go around in loose trousers. And in the winter, when the temperatures drop, they have to freeze in their skirts while the men are nice and snug in their pants.

Hardly uniform, it is? In fact, it is a tad inhuman, if you ask me.

Honestly, is it too much to ask that when it comes to uniforms there should be some uniformity? After all, our women police officers get to wear the same uniform as their male colleagues. Nobody asks them to slip on the high heels just because they are women. So, why ask female airline ground staff to do so? They have to run around just as much as the men. So why force them to do it in heels? Where is the justice in that?

Ginger Rogers famously boasted that she did whatever Fred Astaire could do – only she did it in high heels. And more power to the likes of her. But surely we have come far enough that women don’t need to prove their worth by accomplishing the same tasks as men – only in more difficult conditions?

Which is why I think it is time we asked for a level playing field – and a nice pair of flat-soled shoes in which we can briskly stride across it.

Height of absurdity

Why are women such suckers for high heels?

As I might have mentioned before, I am a bit of a shoe fiend. I just love the way the right pair of shoes can elevate an outfit, improve your posture, increase your self-confidence and make you feel good about yourself. Perhaps that is why, try as I might, I can’t bring myself to stop buying more shoes, even though the spirit of Imelda Marcos seems to have taken over my closet.

But I have to confess that with each season, shoe-shopping becomes more difficult, downright traumatic, sometimes even painful – quite literally. And for that I blame high fashion – which has a nasty way of trickling down to the high street – and its penchant for higher and higher heels.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against high heels. In fact, I love their insolent charm, their insidious glamour and the extra inches they grant my middling frame. And I have several dozen pairs in varying heights, which serve me very well at work meetings, cocktail parties, business lunches and formal dinners.

I love the playful chic of my red-soled Louboutin pumps in blue velvet with silver sequins. I pull out my black Jimmy Choo stilettos whenever I’m in the mood for a bit of power dressing. And my L.K. Bennet suede boots are just the ticket when I want to add a slighter tougher edge to my look.

Yes, I love a pair of high heels just as much as the next girl – so long as I can actually walk in them. Which is why I can’t for the life of me work out who the new high-heeled shoes on the market are meant for.

On a recent trawl of the shops with a girlfriend, I was first amazed and then appalled by the frankly ridiculous shoes on sale. And even my friend – who spends all day running around in impossibly-high heels – balked at some of the styles on display. I’m sorry, but as far as I am concerned, an eight-inch wedge is just plain silly. And don’t even get me started on the seven-inch killer stilettos which look more stilts.

Truth be told, the shoe business has now achieved heights of absurdity undreamt of earlier. It was bad enough when it was peddling four or five inch heels, which were not exactly the last word in comfort. But now high fashion dictates that heels should be even higher, making a mockery of the purpose for which shoes were designed.

So, who thinks up these impractical, foolish monstrosities which pass for women’s shoes these days? Well, for the most part it is male shoe designers, who spend their days in comfortable loafers themselves, but insist on putting women in improbably high heels that are near-impossible to walk in.

When even the models who wear them on the ramp are falling over like ninepins, what hope do us ordinary mortals have of pulling them off these killer heels in real life? And yet, every woman I know has at least one such pair tucked away in her wardrobe, which she slips on every once in a while, even though she should know better.

But then, who am I to scoff and scorn? I have a few such shoes myself, though I only pull them out when I am going to spend all evening at a restaurant table. And even then, by the end of the evening, my bunions are sore, my heels inflamed and my feet are killing me one toe at a time. I barely manage to hobble to the car before I throw them off for the ride, walking barefoot up the steps to my front door.

So, in case you are wondering why heels keep getting higher and higher and shoes more and more uncomfortable, I have the answer for you. It’s because we woman keep buying the damn things, no matter how excruciatingly painful it is to actually wear them.

Let me tell you, if any shoe designer tried to pull the same trick on men, he would be laughed out of the business. No man would ever fall for this nonsense of shoes that looked amazing but felt downright awful. And I don’t think that it is coincidence that the only shoes that make some sort of style statement in men’s fashion are sneakers. Yes, you know, shoes that you can actually walk in, hell, run in, without doing yourself actual damage.

So, why do women allow these shoe designers to get away with murder? Why do we put ourselves in shoes in which we can only mince painfully from point to point? Why do we wear heels that give us back pain, strain our hamstrings, and ruin our knees? Why are we such gluttons for punishment?

After all, what is the point of shoes if you can’t dance in them? What is the point of a pretty pair of heels, if you have to kick them off at the end of the evening to get the circulation back in your toes? What is the point of shoes that you can only wear if you spend the entire evening off your feet?

Yes, that’s right. There’s no point at all. Which is why the next time I go shopping and see a pair of impossibly high heels, I am going to vote with my feet and just say no.