The “aaram” Chair

Anubhuti Patra

Would you call this a chair at all? As a child, I was confused about whether this was an “arm” chair or “aaram” chair. It seemed like the adults around me used either form of address as they pleased. Doesn’t “aaram” chair fit better, though? Especially if you are of the right size and can sink into it and catch an afternoon nap.

As a five-year-old when I first encountered it, I found the rattan too slippery. I was too small and too thin to feel comforted by its vastness. The feeling was the same for me as it would be when I came across a human or monument who were tall or of gigantic proportions. My grandfather was a tall gentleman, who wore crisp white dhotis and kurtas, had a wooden pipe, a four-poster bed, and carried around a walking stick with an elaborately carved head (because one did so as a retired civil servant in those days and not because he needed support while walking).

He was the last reigning patriarch in our family. After he passed away, the title was contested silently by my father and grandmother. Both of them haven’t really commanded the respect given to the reigning patriarch because the rest of us knew subconsciously that the position was in dispute between two parties.

We kids, of course, were not supposed to potter around my grandfather’s room or his things. Much as I would have loved to explore the paan-daan on my own without supervision, I never got to do so. Neither did I get to play to my heart’s content with his spectacles to see how the world looked through glasses as thick as the supposedly diarrhea-inducing green soda drink bottles we were warned against by our parents.

My Jejebapa, in tune with the times, also had one of these chairs—solid wood, armrests that could fit two children under ten years of age on each side. We were at times allowed to park ourselves on the armrest while he was sitting in their chair, depending on how witty and entertaining we had been that day. He didn’t mind being challenged by children; that made him respect the kid more. I earned his respect and attention by blurting out witty quips during story time.

Jejebapa took the role of grandparents holding story hour for the kids of the house pretty seriously. On some evenings, he would sink into his armchair, and we kids would huddle around him on the ground. He would tell us stories that I didn’t know then were from Hindu mythology (Nala-Damyanti, Savitri-Satyawan), or Odia folk tales—silly stories about this old couple called Tuan and Tuin. In that little circle woven by stories he told, there was much magic and intrigue. I read most of those stories later and watched them on TV but nothing quite matched the charm of that little circle. Did the telling of those stories make me want to seek more and hence become the reader? I wonder at times.

When he passed, the dynamics in our family—including how the space in our home was reorganized—changed. There was of course no place really which was off-limits for children as an unsaid rule anymore. The armchair and the meat safe were given away as was the four-poster bed, as they didn’t fit into the smaller flats that we moved into.

The last time I saw an armchair like Jejebapa’s in use was in the railway waiting room in Daman. That solid piece stood holding fort amongst wobbly steel chairs that were already worn with use, fifty years too soon.

I rested on that chair briefly, carrying the childhood memory of slipping off uncomfortably. I struggled a little, changing postures and briefly wondering if I would find some degree of comfort at all. I found my own posture soon: one leg on the ground and one tucked under the other. My skin felt right at home, in a time-slip.

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Objects of Our Affection is a series exploring our connections to the furniture and objects that make our spaces home. Through stories of tables, chairs, and that odd-shaped thing only you love, we celebrate the inanimate pieces that hold memory and witness our lives.

If you'd like to contribute your own story to this series, we'd love to hear from you. Micro-essays, poems, reflections, and fragments welcome. Write to us at hellothadi@gmail.com. Word limit 400.