The Riddle of the Shoes

 

The Riddle of the Shoes

 

Today, I went with some of my office colleagues to the ISKCON temple of our city, to attend a religious feast. Two ladies and two gentlemen...that was the team. Hearing the Arti in progress, we went hurriedly inside the temple to join in. The sweet fragrance of the incense sticks, the sound of the conch shells and the soothing bhajans sung by the devotees engulfed me so totally that I seemed to have been transported to a different realm full of peace and tranquility. The 'rush and hurry' of daily routine, the 'forever running against time', the 'never a moment to sit down'...all seemed to be suspended for a moment.

We hurriedly went up the stairs leading to the main temple which housed the Arti Hall. All the devotees left their shoes on the ground at the foot of the staircase. Our two male colleagues decided to skip the Arti and stayed outside. From there, they had wandered to a construction site where one of them was having his house built. We the ladies were oblivious to all these and thought they were coming behind us.

We joined the Arti and got lost in the transcendental aura. After about an hour, we were led through a passage leading to the feast hall on the ground floor in another part of the campus. So, our shoes were still lying on the ground near the first entrance. Little did we know that this fact was going to cause the future course of events.

We all sat down for the feast. The hall was packed. I looked around for our colleagues but could not spot them in the crowd. So, assuming that they must be among them, I focused on my immediate surroundings and chatted with the other devotees and enjoyed the meal. After about half an hour, it was over, and we came out of the hall. We went near the main entrance to get our shoes and after that we went outside the campus to look for our friends in order to go back together in the same car since we all came together in one car.

Our friends were already in the car. I was a little surprised that they had come out so early. I talked about the meal and the nice menu. They gave monosyllabic replies. So, suspecting something unusual, I asked them whether they had somehow missed the meal. To this, they burst out laughing. And here goes how it happened…

Instead of joining the Arti, they had gone to the construction site to see the progress of the house and thought they would come back in time for the lunch. They did come back in time but to the wrong place. Seeing all the shoes outside the main entrance, they kept on waiting there for all the devotees to finish the Arti, never knowing that the Arti had got over and the devotees had gone through another passage to the lunch hall, still leaving the shoes outside.

The shoes at the entrance had acted as a red herring and had completely misled our friends. When finally, the owners of the shoes came out, it was from another place. The riddle of the shoes was solved too late. The interpretation of evidence is more important than the evidence itself. This was the inevitable conclusion drawn from the incident. To assuage the hunger of the grumbling bellies of our two friends, I had to buy them parathas and coffee which was nothing compared to the meal they had missed…all because of the riddle of the shoes!

 

           

--Memchoubi Phanjoubam

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