New Shoes

When I was seven or eight, we read this poem at school, which to this day describes perfectly the bright eyed, lighthearted feeling I get when I'm in a shoe shop.

Choosing Shoes
by Frida Wolfe

New shoes, new shoes,
Red and pink and blue shoes.

Tell me, what would you choose,

If they'd let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
Pretty pointy-toe shoes,

Strappy, cappy low shoes;

Let's have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,
Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,

Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,

Like some? So would I.

BUT
Flat shoes, fat shoes,
Stump-along-like-that shoes,
Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,
That's the sort they'll buy.

I've always been a closet shoe fetishist and I daresay I imagined I had a good grip over (and atleast a couple pairs of ) whichever footwear fad was currently hitting the streets.

2004, for example, saw everyone in Pune from the girl/guy next door to the toffee-nosed crowd sporting Osho chappals. Which progressed to delicate thong slippers over the course of the year.
2005 was the year of pointy toed stiletto, spilling over into a good part of the next year.
2006 saw this trend morph to accommodate kitten heels, and you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from thousands of tortured feet. 
Summer 2007 fleetingly brought out the latent Govinda in people and everywhere the eye could see there were feet shod in a shade of yellow blinding enough to justify wearing sunglasses indoors. That, thankfully, didnt last very long, as utterly adorable ballet flats soon took over and obviously enough,  had the longest reign of any of the shoe fads.
Late 2008 was plain weird, with all the hoopla about 'toe cleavage'. It all worked out for the best though, as the gorgeousness that was peep toes made an indiscriminate appearance on stilettos, kitten heels, wedges, flats and what have you.
Androgynous gladiator sandals and ankle cuffs were all the rage in 2009.

So far so good.

Then came 2010, which saw yours truly working for what can only be described as slave-drivers. The fourteen hours spent running from one patient to another every day made me glad my piggies were safely ensconced in the most Flat shoes, fat shoes, Stump-along-like-that shoes that I could lay my hands on.

After the six months of rigorous imprisonment at Jaslok, I'm out again trying to recover what scraps of social life I can lay claim to. And lo and behold! all I see all around me is atrocious beachwear paired with the most formal of clothes.
No-holds-barred rubber flipflops.
Gummy (admittedly cute) jelly rain shoes making their way well into winter.
And what veritably looks like a very slightly modified version of bathroom slippers. All with scarlet nail enamel piled on as if it had magical powers of undoing this crime against cordwainers.
Have I been away too long? 
What is going on here?