Jutis – for Rainy season…& Breach Candy July 19, 2013

It has started raining in Mumbai. Let me amend that sentence.

It has been raining in Mumbai since before Summer ended, and there is copious amounts of water pouring from the sky at any given time of the day except when I leave for office. *breaths in*. Which makes me sad.

I have not had a single rainy day off. Never in school, and not in office. Such is life.

However, I do have bright, zany, shiny footwear to repel those evil puddles and light up these working days!

Now, the Indian Juti is an awesome footwear. It is ballerina type, and it cut low on the sides, showcasing more of the foot that the more famous ballet slippers. Plus, the jutis have a lot of intricate design and handwork done on them. Traditionally from northern India, the term literally means ‘shoe‘ in feminine (as in, Juta is masculine and used to denote more heavy type of footwear. Men have Jutis as well)

However, traditionally, the Juti is made of leather. This makes it a little uncomfortable in the initial days when you are breaking it in, and also makes it a difficult footwear for all those rainy days.

Which, when you are living in a city like Mumbai or Calcutta ( Kolkata) is 10 months out of the 12 (figurative). The sad part of which is the damage they wreak on leather footwear through the myriad potholes filled with water.

Now, I don’t know if you have heard of this place in South Mumbai called ‘Breach Candy‘. It is next to the sea, and is a narrow uphill road. Its remarkable feature is the plethora of shoe shops on either side of the road!

Shoes! Everywhere! And oh! so many. I love the place.

So when in June my mother came down for a visit, I made my way there with her, for not only is it about a lot of shoe shops, it is also a nice quaint neighborhood where one can spend a lot of time doing nothing. Oh! and it has a number of coffee shops and bakeries. What more can you ask for eh?

Walking around Breach Candy, it is almost impossible not to buy shoes. And, in one of the shops as we went in, I spotted these bright blue jutis.

I put them on, only to realize they were made of rubber! Not a bit of canvas or leather near these things! How delightful! Waterproof Jutis!

They have a base color of black, with colored thread embroidery all over it – in blue, orange and silver. The piping of the shoe is silver as well. Imatches very well with jeans, and also any salwar or churidar. They are super comfortable to walk, with enough friction at the base.

Since then, I have paired this pair with jeans a number of times, not only on weekends, but also to my ultra professional office (on Fridays) and had pleasing results. Whenever I need to step out of the car and access that shop, through a puddle, these shoes cause me no worry.

By virtue of being made of rubber, they dont get too wet, and they dry pretty soon. Also, after being wet so many times, they still look as good as new!

These are now my favorite go-to shoes for Fridays and weekends, when its raining.