I once saw a man with only one leg.
At first, I looked at him with the kind of sympathy that comes naturally when we see someone living with a physical disability. But then a strange question crossed my mind.
How does a man with one leg buy shoes?
Does he buy a single shoe, or does he purchase a pair like everyone else?
The question stayed with me longer than I expected. Perhaps it was because I had never thought about something so ordinary becoming so complicated in someone else’s life.
One day, curiosity got the better of me, and I asked him.
“Brother, when you need new shoes, do you buy a single shoe or a complete pair?”
He smiled.
“A pair,” he replied.
“A pair?” I asked in surprise. “But what do you do with the other shoe?”
He looked at me for a moment, as though he were deciding whether to explain something that most people would never understand.
Then he said, “I keep it in my almirah.”
“In your almirah?”
“Yes. Every time I buy a new pair, I wear one shoe and keep the other in my cupboard. I have been doing this for years. If you open my almirah, you will find many single shoes, each belonging to a different pair.”
For a moment, I had nothing to say.
I imagined his almirah filled with shoes of different colours, sizes, and designs. Shoes that had been manufactured to walk together, sold together, and worn together—but had ended up separated by the circumstances of a man’s life.
I wondered whether he ever looked at those shoes.
Did he remember when he bought them? Did he remember the days when he had first worn them? Or had they simply become objects occupying a forgotten corner of his cupboard?
Then another question occurred to me.
“Why don’t you buy just one shoe? Surely, it would cost you less.”
His smile faded a little.
“Because,” he said quietly, “shops sell pairs.”
He paused before continuing.
“And sometimes, buying a single shoe is more difficult than living with one leg.”
His words struck me harder than I had expected.
We often believe that the world is designed for everyone. We build shops, roads, buildings, and systems around the needs of the majority, and then wonder why someone different struggles to fit in.
For most people, a pair of shoes is just a pair of shoes. Nobody thinks twice before buying one. Nobody worries about the unused half of a purchase.
But for this man, every new pair came with a small, unavoidable reminder of what he could no longer use.
Still, he bought them.
Not because he needed both shoes, but because the world had not made it easy for him to buy only one.
I began to think about the shoes in his almirah.
Perhaps, somewhere among them, there was a black shoe he had bought for a wedding he attended years ago. Perhaps there was a brown one he had worn on his first day at work. Perhaps some were old, some nearly new, and some had been forgotten entirely.
Each had a story.
Each had once belonged to a pair.
And each had been left behind.
I wondered whether he ever felt sad looking at them. Whether those unused shoes reminded him of the life he had lived before losing his leg, or of the simple pleasures that other people enjoyed without ever noticing them.
I wanted to ask him more, but I remained silent.
Sometimes, we ask questions because we are curious. Sometimes, we remain silent because we finally begin to understand.
That day, I walked away thinking about his almirah.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that his story was not really about shoes.
It was about the way we design a world for people who fit our expectations, while leaving others to adjust to whatever remains.
It was about the small humiliations hidden inside ordinary purchases.
And it was about dignity—the quiet determination of someone who continues to live his life without asking the world to feel sorry for him.
Perhaps the most painful part of his story was not that he had lost a leg.
It was that, every time he bought a new pair of shoes, he was reminded that the world still expected him to pay for something he could never fully use.
That evening, I thought of all the things we buy without a second thought, all the doors that open for us without effort, and all the conveniences we mistake for necessities.
I thought of the man returning home with a new pair of shoes, opening his almirah, and placing one more shoe beside the others.
Another shoe without its companion.
Another pair divided by circumstance.
Another silent reminder of a world that had never considered his needs.
And suddenly, I found myself wondering:
How many things in this world are sold in pairs, even though some people need only one?
And how many people are forced to pay the full price simply because the world has never learned to make room for their differences?
Perhaps his almirah was full of unused shoes.
But perhaps the real emptiness belonged to a society that had never thought to ask why.
The author can be reached at muzamilmanzoor05123@gmail.com
