In a city where every man walking on the street or sitting on the park bench, is wearing dusty and dirty footwear, shoe-shining must seem a pretty obvious, even smart choice for a 16-year old upstart entrepreneur. Now that I am a 16 and a half years old experienced entrepreneur, I know it was a bad choice.

Low investment, zero overheads, and getting to roam around in fun places like markets, parks and office plazas, made it my first and final choice when my mother suggested I should contribute to the household income, the day I finished high school exams.

There was also a personal reason for my preference. My father worked in a government office. He wore dress pants, an ironed shirt and necktie to work. He had a pair of black Oxford shoes that he polished every night. On weekends he did a more thorough job for which he removed laces, then set about digging out specs of dirt from the seams and folds with a straightened paper clip, cleaned every bit of the upper and rim of the sole with a damp cloth, applied polish evenly and left the pair in the sun to soften and absorb pigments, and then rubbed with quick and firm strokes of the brush for what seemed like hours. He took even longer shining the toes to a mirror like gloss with little circular movements of his fingers with a strip of leather wrapped on them.

I never saw his shoes untidy. When I visited him in hospital after he was run-over by a passenger van, he was lying unconscious on a bench; his clothes torn in places, sticky with blood and dirt, but his Oxfords were shining as always. There was just one scratch on the right toe, that I have been able to mend over the years, as I inherited his shoes along with the responsibility to care for them. Through that pair I have learnt to care for all leather shoes. I like touching them, working on them and making them come alive in my hands.

I scavenged a leather bazaar for two days looking for thin soft carvings of leather in the trash strewn in the street. I picked up a smart tool box for 50 rupees after haggling at Juma Bazaar for half an hour. I bought four different coloured brushes – one each for black, brown and tan and one for neutral polish. I slung the tool box on my shoulder and headed for the nearest marketplace. I was ready to make a living through honest hard work.

What I did not consider at the time of choosing my first livelihood was the possibility – which turned out to be the eventuality – that all men are not like my father. I have learnt that majority of men do not wear or need clean shoes. They find footwear in its natural state when it is soiled, filthy and smelly. Feet are the basest parts of human body, which is why if we touch our feet we have to wash hands. By association, shoes are supposed to be worthless and disgraceful, that’s why we throw them at a lowly person and leave them outside when entering a mosque. To these men, clean and shining shoes only belong in the show cases. Once put in service they require no love and care. Polishing a shoe which is in use is like spraying air freshener in an open sewer, a wasteful act. This is what they believe, and practice.

Whatever little business there is, gets shared by a dozen or so shoe-shiners – mostly boys my age and some older men. They come to work in their month-old smelly clothes and with unwashed faces. They have no self-respect. They run after every man that steps out of a car, plead for custom, and if their services are declined they switch to plain begging. They are beggars carrying a shoe shining kit for appearance’s sake. They have no wish to work. They have no love of footwear or an appreciation of the art of polishing leather to a mirror-like shine; caring for and nourishing it; making it healthy and smart.

I don’t like to mix with them because I don’t like to be taken as one of them. I am a professional shoe-shiner and proudly charge 30 rupees for a pair while others settle for ‘whatever you wish to pay’ in the hope of getting a 50 rupee note but often get 10, or after much pleading, 20. I don’t plead, I don’t pester. I hate begging and beggars.

My mother brings me lunch when she can. She works as a domestic helper and usually finishes work by early afternoon. She then comes to the market and sits with me, advising me on how to beat the competition. ‘No one will come to you, you have to go after customers like other boys do’. When she sees a big car parking she urgently nudges me to go for it. She knows the gentlemen in big cars never get their shoes polished on the go, but they are likely to tip you anyways. She doesn’t condone begging but as she finds it hard to feed five growing children from her income alone, she has begun to make exceptions to the rule: ‘If they give you money without you asking for it, that’s not begging’. I don’t listen to her in business matters, even though there are days when I don’t make a single rupee.

Last week she was sitting with me on the stairs of the market when a woman stopped and extended a hand towards me holding a 100 rupee note. I ignored her thinking she was asking for change. I was shocked when my mother took the note from her and mumbled some prayers for her children. I must have looked embarrassed or hurt for she dropped her tone and her eyes when she spoke to me: ‘You kids have only had daal and vegetable to eat for months. I am going home and on the way I’ll buy half kilo chicken to cook for dinner. You like chicken, don’t you?’ she patted my cheek and left.

Since that day she is spending all her free time with me on the stairs of market. She doesn’t ask for alms but accepts it without hesitation. In a couple of hours she makes more money than I do working all day. It is settled then that begging is more rewarding a vocation than shoe-shining. This is the reason I am quitting this business. There must be some line of work more profitable than begging. Or is there?