These days, one rarely comes across the sturdy, foldable one-seater steel chairs in houses or public places. They were once ubiquitous and ruled the roost in political meetings, music concerts and marriage halls. The light weight, multi-coloured and easy to handle plastic chairs have vastly phased them out.
During my childhood days, my sisters, brothers and I – five of us, once volunteered to repaint the steel chairs in our home so we could let the paint soaked brush swing freely out of our hands and inhale the intoxicating paint fragrance from close quarters. Dad gave us the green signal.
Ignorant of the paint chemistry and not paying heed to the instructions, we mixed a heavy dose of thinner to the paint. So even after a few hours of application, the paint did not dry off. A family friend- a stocky gentleman in his mid-thirties- who frequented our house to chat with dad and was addicted to using the expression, ‘just like that’ multiple times in his talks walked in to our home. Looking at our paint-tainted dresses and the gleaming steel chairs in the hall, he surmised and told dad, “Looks like your children have, just like that, painted the chairs,” and sat on a chair painted by us.
After ten minutes of inconsequential talk, he tried to get up and along with him, up went the chair stuck to his dhoti. Then due to gravitational force, the chair fell down accompanied by the sound of the paint-smeared dhoti tearing off, seeing which, we burst into laughter. My youngest brother rolled on the floor right in front of our guest unable to contain his explosive laughter. “Just like that, why are you all laughing?” chided the embarrassed man and my sister told him, “Uncle, ‘just like that’ you couldn’t get up and that’s why we’re laughing!”
All is not rosy with plastic chairs either. Many a noble soul might nurse a tale of woes on how they were grounded, literally and figuratively, when they tried to mount a poor quality, fragile or unsuitable plastic chair. I have seen many ‘powerful and weighty’ persons seated in marriage halls suddenly landing on the floor with a thud to become the cynosure of all eyes, courtesy a broken plastic chair.
During a visit to my home last year, my self-same youngest brother then weighing 80 kg, sat on a plastic chair and attempted dangerously a back and forth swinging motion during which the chair buckled massively. He came down crashing from the chair and ‘just like that’ became a laughing stock!
He managed to get up, luckily unhurt but shaken. My wife rushed in and said, “It’s good that you fell.” “What?” yelled my brother. Realising her miscommunication, my wife made amends and said, “What I meant was that you’re young and so you could get up easily. Imagine if the chair had failed when your octogenarian dad had sat on it. Thank God for that!”
