Chairs in my life
Furry fantasy in my living-room
Not very comfortable. Made me feel good when I bought it but haven’t felt the same since.
Bamboo bliss, not
Looks good in my living-room but can’t sit on this for too long either.
It’s a trap
This butterfly chair looks cool in the living room, fun to sink in, but is unstable when getting up. It’s less of a chair and more of a booby trap!
Workhorse
Boring-looking dining chair. Looks sad but delivers. I work from home and I’m usually sitting in this chair for most part of my work day. I love it/her. (Her?) It’s interesting that we give genders to objects that we like.
Isn’t it nice when things just work
This unassuming couch in my living room is the best. It is not the biggest, or the most expensive or the fanciest, but it is comfortable. I sit in it, lie down in it, sometimes get a short nap in it and love every bit of it. This is home.
Some other chairs that I sit in.
The unsung hero
Here’s a standardized public bench near my place. It lacks character, is generic and faceless in some ways. In fact, its face is somebody’s advertisement. So, it keeps changing with no identity of its own. These public benches are like the nobodies of our city and yet they play such an important role. They offer a comfortable resting place for strangers and neighbors alike.
Impulse cousins
Beautiful looking garden chairs being sold at the nearby nursery. They look nice but are not comfortable to sit. Their placement is designed to trigger impulse purchase. Somehow, people in a nursery always seem to be predisposed to buy things that go with their plants.
Uncomfortable by design
Outdoor seating in most busy restaurants seems to follow a trend. Most of the chairs are uncomfortable. Looks like the store owners do not want people to sit for longer.
Parrot greens
Saw these chairs at a Boba shop. The store had limited seating inside. And these chairs that they had laid outside were no better. Mat be the idea is to discourage people (esp. teenage clientele?) from sitting for too long.
Rejected twins
I saw these two by the road and felt bad for them. If they were in some developing country they’d still be in use. I felt sad for the chairs and the waste that has been created but did not have to be.
There are a few more, and unusual, chairs that I’d like to include in my list.
Keeps it cool
This earthy jute rug that I sometimes sit on, and it’s more comfortable than most of the chairs I have.
Think station
Toilet ‘seat’ that is more important than most of the chairs and rugs at home. It is a great place to relax and contemplate.
Chairs in our vocabulary
This assignment also made me think about chairs beyond my own little world. Chairs are a part of business and organizational vocabulary. Look at titles like ‘Chairperson’, ‘Chairman’, ‘Chairwoman’ etc.
There are other words created because of the roles that chairs play, like the Wheelchair.
Picture source: http://cdn.drivemedical.com/media/catalog/product/cache/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/S/T/STDS1074.jpg
Chairs can also create new words because of their unique feature, like the Revolving chair.
Picture Source:
https://n2.sdlcdn.com/imgs/a/q/r/Nice-Black-Metallic-Office-Chair-SDL770186739-1-95416.jpg
Chairs are also associated with games that children play like, the game of Musical chairs. The expression, musical chairs has gone further, it is also used to describe a situation characterized by uncertainty and frequent change.
Kids playing a game of musical chairs
Picture source:
Chairs as symbol of power
Like mentioned in Galen Cranz’s book, chairs have come to symbolize power and prosperity. In fact, the kind of chair being used says a lot about both the person using it. Chairs are an integral symbol of power in high ‘power distance societies’ (power distance societies are those where it is accepted that power is distributed unequally). In these societies the bigger or higher the chair the more important the person sitting in it. Traditionally, only kings and the royalty could sit in such chairs.
Picture Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Akbar_II_in_durbar.jpg/220px-Akbar_II_in_durbar.jpg
Fingerprints of a king’s court are still all around us. If you go to a traditional Indian wedding ceremony in India, you’ll see that the bride and the groom are usually seated in a big throne-like chair. The chairs are placed on a raised platform that rises above the guests and their seats, just like in a king’s court from an era gone by. It is often said in India that “every man gets to be a king on his wedding day.”
A groom at his wedding (North India, 2016)
No chairs = poor
Not having chairs or other furniture is associated with poverty. In this short clip, from a well-known Hindi movie. You’ll see the landlord and his assistant are visiting a poor farmer’s home to collect unpaid rent. The farmer has fallen on hard times and has no chair to offer to the guests. Guests have to sit on the floor.
