Billing for your footwear shop in Arunachal Pradesh
Boots for the rains, sandals for the dry weeks and a repair at the corner, each billed and counted.
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Tools for a wall of boots, sandals and school shoes
Bills on your phone
A bill for a pair of paddy boots and two pairs of socks, shown on the phone to the farm owner who sent his workers.
Low stock warnings
A level for paddy boots in the middle sizes, so the warning reaches you before the planting week and not in the middle of it.
Orders to suppliers
A page for the local cobbler who makes pairs by hand, with what he left, what sold and what is owed to him.
Lohit, whose oranges and ginger travel to market each season
A footwear shop sells to people who walk to markets and fields, so what a district grows tells you who is on the road.
- Oranges, ginger, pineapple and large cardamom from Lohit reach local markets and markets in Assam in large quantities each season.
Why a hill footwear shop changes its shelf with the rain
Twelve pairs of boots for a work-gang in the planting week
A group of farm workers comes in together before the paddy is planted and wants twelve pairs of rubber boots in different sizes. They stand around the shelf, try pairs, swap sizes and shout for the right colour. By the time they have chosen, the shelf is scrambled and you cannot say which sizes are gone.
The sole that gripped last season, asked for by feel
People who work the vegetable slopes want a sole that grips on wet ground, and the one that served them last season is the one they ask for. They remember the grip, not the name of the pair, and you cannot always recall which boot it was. You bring out three pairs that look alike while they wait with muddy hands.
The same households, the same heels, every season
In the hills the stones eat heels, and the same households send the same pairs back each season for a new one. You remember who comes but not how often. So you cannot tell the family whose shoes need a harder sole from the family that only walks a long way, and you sell both the same pair.
From the last pair of boots to the repair done on the spot
The shelf space the hand-made pairs earn
On the shelf the hand-made pair and the factory pair look as different as the people who buy them. The visitor turns the hand-made pair over, the town buyer looks at the sole. Keep the hand-made styles as items apart, and at the season's end the sales tell you whether they deserve their place on the shelf by the door.
The planting-week order, paid when the paddy is set
Before the paddy is set, the farm owner sends his gang in for boots and pays when the work is done. Make the bill in his name that day with the pairs on it by size, and keep his page open until he pays. The sizes come off the count at once, so the middle sizes you are short of show before the next gang arrives.
The month the stony path wore the most heels
Heels wear fastest on a stony path, and in some months the corner is busier than the shelf. Charge each new heel as a line of its own, and at the month's end set the corner's total beside the shelf's. You see which month the path gave you more than the boots.
Sizes, repairs and exchanges: what shoe sellers here ask
Two makers send me the same black paddy boot. How do I keep their pairs apart on the bill?
Put the maker's name in the item's name. When the gang complains of one pair, the bill tells you which maker's pair it was, so you know whom to speak to, and the other maker's count is not touched.
The same family's heels come back every season. How do I see what the family has paid over the year?
Give the family a page and bill each heel on it. Open the page and each season's heel is there with its day, and the year's total is a sum you can read to them.
The rains can close the road to the plains. How early must I send the paddy-boot order?
Count back from the first day boots sold in last year's planting week, found in the daily report. Send the order before that day, so the middle sizes are on the shelf.
Tsem-Lham, the Monpa shoe, and the vegetable slopes of West Kameng
Tawang's Monpa people have a traditional shoe-making craft (Tsem-Lham), but DailyO reported that the local handicrafts industry is slowly nearing death as youths lose interest. A shop that sells factory shoes in Tawang sits beside a craft that few young people learn, and its customers know the difference between the two in the hand. A craft that few young people are learning may soon become rare, and a shop that sells a hand-made pair beside factory ones may find that the hand-made pair is the one visitors ask about.
Growing tomato, cabbage and chilli around Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang and Shergaon is a main livelihood, and rose and orchid flowers are also grown. People who work these slopes need shoes that grip, and the shops in the towns around them see the same households buy again as the seasons turn. Footwear for people who walk the slopes wears out at the heel and the sole first, so the same households come back each season for repairs and new pairs, and a shop that keeps their names on pages sees the same faces return.