Launched by Godrej Archives in the 125th year of Godrej, From the Frugal to the Ornate: Stories of the Seat in India is a compilation of essays by Sarita Sundar – researcher, writer, designer, and the curator of this book – that also includes a few essays from other researchers of the subject. The book traces the evolution of the ‘seat’ —from the simple baithak to the modern chair. Images sourced from museums, private collections, design studios, artisans and other individuals showcase the myriad forms of seating from the classical to the modern, from the frugal to the ornate. Below is an extract from the book.§THE TENSIONS CAUSED BY THE PROXIMITY OF INCONGRUOUS ELEMENTS—the classical with the plebeian, the ordinary with the extraordinary, the heritage and kitsch—have intrigued artists and writers throughout history. Edward Hopper’s poignant paintings of humble settings in America and Vincent van Gogh’s rendering of the simple straw chair elevate the everyday, find beauty and poetry in the gritty, and a cause for epiphany in the ordinary. By looking at these works, viewers see their own humdrum existence transformed into Proustian revelations.Photo: Samar S. JodhaWhile the historic, the significant, and monumental make the annals of most museums and collections, social media platforms like Instagram discard the ‘monumental’ and bring amateur enthusiasts and professional photographers on a level field. Some posts on these platforms are a celebration of the ordinary, the habitual. Just as etchings and photographs by colonial photographers and illustrators created a visual history of the 19th century, and Ferenc Berko’s ‘fascination with the ordinary’ produced images of everyday life in India in the mid-20th century, photography on Instagram seems to capture the spirit of the 21st century. The study of the most banal of objects seems to offer a panoramic understanding of a culture in time.Among the myriad subjects that appear in many Instagram posts, the seat for the man-on-the-street appears with metronome regularity, ranging from the innocuous vernacular to the inexpensive industrial. These seats—lone pieces found on urban streets, community seating in public spaces, inexpensive vernacular seats made of natural fibre, and mass-produced seats made of steel and plastic—are often free of cultural context, economical, accessible, and found in a similar manner across the country. Benches and stools hastily put together from available wood scrap, folding metal chairs, traditional moodas and woven charpais are commonplace in rural and urban Indian environments. The chabuthras, or platforms around large trees, the bankdo, the paat or high bench, are mostly found in villages and semi-urban centres. Roadside tea stalls often have a collection of simple stools or benches that are pulled out at the beginning of the day’s work and stacked back in place at night after the last stragglers leave. These furniture pieces, basic in form and shape, are elastic, adapting to multiple uses during the course of a day—they are used as seats in the morning, as flat platforms to serve food in the afternoon, and to lie upon and rest in the evening.Mooda. Photo: Michael FountoulakisTHERE IS, HOWEVER, ONE SEAT THAT IS INCREASINGLY REPLACING MANY—the plastic chair, also called the monobloc is taking over waiting rooms, wedding halls, security cabins, and even museum hallways across India. This lightweight and economical chair with its efficient stackability, ease of maintenance, and potential for flexible arrangement is as easily seen in noodle cafés on the snow topped mountains of Gulmarg in Kashmir as in seaside shacks on the sandy beaches of tropical Goa.Plastic chairs seem to be part of a social network, like members of a community interacting with each other, stacked at the back of trucks or even cycle rickshaws, or on roadsides. Like communal animals they move in herds of red, white and blue, and congregate from one social event to another—as congenial at birth and wedding celebrations as they are in death ceremonies and political rallies. Plastic chairs adopt not only the places that previous vernacular seats occupied, but also their unassuming nature—their artlessness proffering them peculiar qualities. They seat both the commoner and the VIP, the secular and the sacred with egalitarian spirit. Their very banality allows them an invisible, paradoxical power: ubiquitous yet imperceptible, indispensable yet forgettable. While almost every seat in India suggests a time and place, the monobloc plastic chair is free of any specific context, without geographical or cultural overtones. It can be criticised for making the world too homogenised and thereby leading to the obliteration of indigenous cultures, even while accomplishing exactly what Modernism strived to achieve—an object that is universal in idiom, inexpensive and accessible to millions—playing a part in creating a democratic, equitable world. However, designers are divided on their views on the monobloc chair. While some see a value in it as an inexpensive and accessible consumer product, others decry it for its plebeian looks, for exemplifying wasteful consumerism and use of a non-sustainable, non-renewable material.Photo: K.K. MuralidharanPhoto: Dinesh KhannaSOME COMMON SEATS HAVE A ‘STICKINESS’ FOR ALL THEIR BANAL CHARACTER, that draws people back to them, the potential of which is clearly recognised by businesses. The historic Irani Cafés in Mumbai known for their inclusive, welcoming nature, are frequented by people from all walks of life. Located at corners of buildings, they are run by Irani or Parsi communities who are not concerned by the ‘non-vastu’ compliance of corner businesses. These establishments retain classic characteristics: chequered tablecloths; quaint ‘rules of establishment boards’; a counter at the entrance with a glass cupboard of cookie jars; cantankerous staff; a simple menu of bun-maska, omelettes and Parsi dishes—and the Irani Café Chair. The design and form of these iconic bentwood chairs mirror the welcoming, inclusive, sturdy, no-nonsense and democratic culture of the cafés. They may have been introduced to impart a European ambience and most likely were imported in the early 1900s, when the first Irani restaurants appeared in India. Some of these chairs are close versions of the Thonet Chair No. 14 found in classic Viennese coffee bistros, while others with turned wood elements are like French café chairs.Photo: Kunal Merchant/Bombaywalla Historical WorksTHE INDUSTRIALLY MANUFACTURED bent steel Godrej CH series of chairs were the mainstay of public offices across the country in mid-20th century. Intrinsically part of public consciousness, their appropriation into newly styled interiors was a natural progression. The CH-13 Executive Chair has been redesigned by boutique design stores; spruced up and brightened with colourful floral upholstery and shiny painted white frames—it participates in contemporary decors that feature a blend of traditional and contemporary aesthetics. Refurbished CH 8 Chairs, with frames and upholstery in bright yellow and blue, shed their previous staid grey and military green industrial aesthetic that typified the Modern period. These ordinary seats would not have been given a second glance when used in government offices across the country, but with their ‘makeover’, they become ‘accent features’ and ‘conversation pieces’. Whether it is for nostalgia’s sake or an appeal for simplicity and practicality, these everyday objects become elevated to a special status in their new environments.Both the omnipresent plastic chair and the simple mooda hold aloft hope for our continued pluralistic futures, while also bringing to the fore critical questions on obsolescence, the value of unskilled handcraft labour, and cultural appropriation. Having proved their evolutionary worth, the onus is on the new breed of designers and manufacturers to address issues of sustainability—of materials and processes, of craft skills and thereby the sustainability of socio-cultural identities. The image of the plastic chair repaired innumerable times, bound together with string, and adapted for reuse gives us a hint that India is not yet a ‘throwaway’ society. Its appearance at garden parties and conflict fraught zones speaks of its grace and power. While the tenets of Modernism have prescribed anonymity, universalism, and clean-lined simplicity as an aspirational ideal, there is another sort of simplicity and timelessness that is embedded in everyday things, a lasting allure to the touch of the human hand in products like the unpretentious mooda—that finds mention in ancient scriptures and sculptures as easily as in contemporary design fairs and forums. While we celebrate the continued interest in a seat from our common heritage on global platforms, we should pause and take heed of the concern raised by William Morris and fellow members of the Arts and Crafts Movement in 1909, that ‘goods which ought to be common in the market are now becoming rare treasures for museums and the cabinets of rich men’.Many industrial designers are eager to take up the challenge of creating an India-designed, mass manufactured chair or seat that is accessible to the masses and not just in use in the drawing rooms and ‘cabinets of rich men’. The question remains whether collaborations with manufacturers will result in the necessary investments in design and technical development to create a product that has the potential to be positioned ‘up there’ amongst global design classics while remaining rich in cultural context—as also sensitive to the need for a sustainable future.Sarita Sundar is a Bangalore-based designer, design historian, teacher and studied observer of the visual world.