A tribute to someone who walked with me all these years…

This week saw the passing away of an icon whose family name is a household name in India. Mr.Thomas Bata, the Czech shoe mogul died on the 1st of September at the age of 93 … (never knew Bata was of Czech origin until today) and this blog is a tribute to him. Bata… those four letters was a brand, a generic and above all the only footwear the people of my generation and above knew and wore. The bright red neon with that curvy font that has never changed over the years is a sign board that does not slip your eye which ever city you are in.
It was a ritual, days before schools reopened to visit a Bata store back home, and buy a pair of normal black shoes which would have lasted longer had not your feet grown further and u didn’t try to emulate a Maradona playing football, with a ball ¼th the size of a football. In spite of all this, it would still last a couple of monsoons before it would go under the neighbourhood cobbler’s knife and needle to keep them running and kicking for a few more months. Their price tags always ended in a...99 or a dot 95 paisa from which evolved the infamous ‘Bata rate’ for anything that had price tag that ended with 99 or a 95 Paisa.
Bubblegummers, North Star, Power, Marie Claire were some of their labels, Marie Claire was the one that drew the women to a Bata shop which until then for them was a shoe shop (not a footwear retailing outlet as it is called today) that sold boring black boys shoes. North Star was the Reebok or the Nike of those days and Power was for the middle class morning walker. These were before the entry of the big names in footwear retailing and also before the arrival of Nikes, Reeboks and the likes… From an ordinary black shoe to a Nike + Ipod Sports kit…owe it to the pioneering efforts of this family which started taking care of your feet since 1894…