Home Stories: An ode to a chair by Payal Khandelwal
Written by Payal Khandelwal
For some years in my late 20s, early 30s, I tried to live like a vagabond in the city of Mumbai. Often inhabiting houses in a detached way that made my ‘escape’ quite easy. I quite consciously didn’t put anything inside them to really hold onto - ‘temporary decor, temporary feelings’ was my house philosophy at that time.
My last-to-last house that I rented from a sweet old Goan couple in 2019 is where something shifted inside me. This was an unfurnished house, so I borrowed some furniture from a friend who had moved abroad and rented some appliances. Slowly, I started getting some artworks framed. Started building a collection of crockery and linen. Crafted a scrapbook of magnets, travel postcards, little notes from friends and family, all over the refrigerator.
I realised that I was slowly falling for the house, feeling calm and comfortable inside it, and therefore, personalising it.
This feeling of warmth led me to thinking about a piece of furniture that had been on my mind forever - something I wanted to get once I was much older and too tired to move anywhere. It represented the most beautiful part of an otherwise tough childhood.
In February 2020, I finally decided to go to a second-hand furniture market to try and find what I was looking for. After about one hour of digging through the dusty shops with great finds, there it was in the flesh - a beautifully crafted piece of my childhood! A vintage cane chair.
This was exactly like the two chairs in my grandparents’ home in Delhi from where my grandfather and I (till I was around 12 years old) would build our own planet and converse in our alien language. The chairs protected both of us from anything that might attack us from Planet Earth. They kept us close, safe, curious, imaginative, and deliriously happy. I was so happy to find something so similar to what we had - in terms of its look and feel.
“There it was in flesh - a beautifully crafted piece of my childhood! A vintage cane chair.”
Towards the end of March 2020, the world stopped still and I was left isolated like many others in the world. After the initial shock and fear of the dystopia, I pushed myself into starting my days in my cane chair, wondering if it still had the power to take me to another planet for a moment. This time, without my grandfather though. For the first one month, like a sacred ritual every morning, I would sit in my chair with a cup of tea and Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’, and escape to a small town just outside Naples, Italy and witness the evolving, complicated friendship of Lila and Lenu amidst all their other neighbourhood drama. It worked. I was transported.
The chair moved with me to two new places after that, including the current home I am slowly creating with my partner. It has been covered in so many more layers of memories over those fond memories of my childhood. It’s hands down the most special object in my home.