When Life Is All About Skateboarding

July 7, 2017

Processed with VSCOcam with hb2 preset — A still from the film 'Two Shoes'

For Shubham Surana and Karthik Jain, a skate board is not just a mere piece of wood. It is much more. Skateboarding is now an essential part of the lives of these two city-based millennials who are the protagonists of ‘Two Shoes’, a feature film depicting their skateboarding story.

“I had my first board five years ago and it was basically a toy board with a ply with roller skate wheels beneath. After a year of getting my first board, a show called Zeke and Luther inspired Karthik and I to learn more about tricks. Now, skateboarding is the biggest part of my life and it is who I am,” states Shubham.

The first skate park in the country was launched in Goa in 2003. Today, there are a handful of skate parks that have opened in a few Indian cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The film stylistically depicts Shubham and Karthik’s passion in monochrome while also focusing on their difficulties to find spaces to skate in Pune. “Skateboarding in India faces one and only one problem that is places to practice. I’m a total street skater and there’s not a single proper street plaza or street style skate park in our country. The total number of skate parks won’t even cross 20. People do build personal ramps but they’re ramps and street style boys barely feel like skating on them. We do go to street spots but there’s a possibility of people kicking us out of mostly every spot and I can’t complain about it because it is skateboarding nature everywhere in the world,” expresses Shubham.

TheVibe Collabs | Two Shoes | Teaser

Infinite moves despite just #TwoShoes – a skateboarding story from Pune, by the The Gnarly Company.

Posted by TheVibe on Tuesday, June 27, 2017

But, for Karthik, the challenges were different. Skateboarding is an unconventional sport that is just beginning to gain momentum amongst Indian youth. “I faced a lot of criticism and crushing comments saying that this won’t get me anywhere and that it is ruining my life. Defying what the society told me again and again, there were other problems too like bad roads. People think that we skaters are just trying to destroy what we skate on. It is plain difficult to be a skater.”

Asad Abid, Executive Producer at TheVibe that produced ‘Two Shoes’, stresses on the importance for people to look beyond the usual. “It is important for people to have alternate lifestyles in the same way it’s important to have extra-curricular activities in your school days. Alternate lifestyle is nothing but a mirror image of what you did back then in school – it is there for a reason and lets you have a conscious passionate approach to life.

As for Shubham and Karthik, they want to contribute enough to put India on the skateboarding map. Even though they have a long way to go, their aim is spread the influence and get people intrigued by the sport. “Well now we have successfully boosted the number of skaters in our hometown Pune by taking workshops, classes and events, but we still have a long way to go. In the country, there are groups of skaters in each city working together to push skateboarding in India and one day we will get India on the skate map of the world. The purpose of this film is to inspire people and make them want skate at least once in their life!”