Laces or Strings

  Shoelaces or shoestrings as the American would like to call them, seemingly innocuous accessories, can be quite a nuisance or a botheration for some of us. I am sure you have heard of the phrase tie yourself up in knots, well the origin can be traced back to someone who ended up falling on his face with his shoe laces playing truant. This was a common prank in schools when the unsuspecting master or a dozing dud of a classmate would be at the receiving end.  You must be wondering what is it about these laces which have forced me to wax eloquent about their characteristics, well, actually there is. 

In the days of yore, the shoe laces were following the straight bar lacing method

, where one end of the aglet (the tip of the shoe lace) was taken straight to the last hole  (eye) and the second one would traverse the others in a crisscross manner. Tightening and loosening was simple, you had to just pull at the lowest one, followed by the higher ones and you could manage it without any hassle. But then, what is life if not a little complicated, so some
smart alecks introduced the criss-cross method, now the task of loosening or tightening was not just a challenge but for most of us quite impossible, with due apologies to Napoleon, in whose dictionary the word impossible wasn't there supposedly. I am sure he wore boots with straight lacing or he would have possibly hired some technicians to do the job for him. As if this is not enough, there are those who having been inspired by the complex design of DNA, decided to use the helix formation. Now try your hand at tinkering with the lowly laces; with all these complex webs which have been woven with them obviously they have shed their lowly status eons ago. As if the pattern of lacing was not enough, there are umpteen methods of tying the knot, most of us, are used to the simple figure of eight, but then, the basic aim of a knot is not to simplify things, so we have the shoemaker's knot or the bow knot, granny knot, double slip or the half hitch ones. 

Inventions are made to make things, procedures etc easier for the commoners, but these inventions are obviously not meant for us but those with the IQ of an Einstein, though I am sure even he would be hard put to resolve these tangles. No wonder  pump shoes, slip ons, sandals etc must have started finding their aficionados, fed up with the strings attached. In NDA, the twisted pair of laces on our drill boots  could land us in trouble, this small twist could be your nemesis. Our Drill Instructors (Ustaads) who did not have just an ‘eye for detail’ but a microscope who could discern  a twist where none was visible to the human eye. Then laces were made of cotton, which would snap at the time when they were expected to hold for a crucial march up to the Squadron Commander, with no replacement, the effort to use the remnant of the lace was again a herculean task, as the drill boot was no push over with its  thirteen nails and horse shoe together weighed a couple of kilograms, thus giving way again. Now we had the shoe and no lace, a situation which can only be experienced first hand, so an attempt was made to tie the two parts of the laces in such a manner that they would hold and the resultant knot is well camouflaged. We would get caught no doubt but at least you would be with the shoes and not without them.

While we were struggling with our shoelaces, the ladies chose their footwear which did not need this unnecessary accessory, they had their chappals, sandals and boots which used a zipper. Some smart ones amongst us too got hold of boots with the zipper, but them most still had to struggle with laces as usually men's shoes were upto their ankles only, rarely going above that, where a zipper could be put to use. These days a growing potbelly restricts the view and tying the shoelace itself becomes an ordeal. ‘Laces’ or ‘strings’, call them what you wish to, but ladies use them very imaginatively not leaving them with lowly shoes, no wonder they exact a revenge from us menfolk.