Sweaty feet, keep your shoes on

This is for all those who suffer sweaty feet. Please, please, for the sake of others who are cursed with strong olfactory senses, keep your shoes on in an air-conditioned cinema theatre!

This past Christmas was movie marathon day for my husband, our kids and I. We first watched James Cameron's Avatar in 3D and were completely blown away. For me that is indeed strange because I detest sci-fi as a genre. Epic fantasy and science fiction buffs, please don't take this personally. It's just a matter of taste. So here we were watching this epic unfold with three-dimensional impact when someone seated behind us decided to take his/her shoes off. That dampened the experience for us to quite an extent. How can one concentrate completely on a film when the senses are assaulted by the vile smell of someone's sweaty feet?

Feet prone to sweating are a fairly common problem, especially in a humid climate like Mumbai has. And those who suffer it have a really difficult time. But they are fully aware of their condition and should at least not subject others to the torture of a stinky movie theatre! Please, please, please keep your shoes on in air-conditioned, public spaces.

If that wasn't enough, those foul-smelling cheese popcorns seemed to find a lot of takers during the same show. So it was a double whammy. The combined stench, arrested and circulated by the air-conditioners, was overpowering. I had to sit through most of the film with my shawl clasped over the nose, held in place by the 3D glasses!

Thankfully we were spared a similar experience at the second film we watched (3 Idiots, which is a complete hoot and we all loved). It was a different multiplex theatre where the air was unmolested by sweaty feet. Phew.