Towel on the Chair Back

TOWEL on the CHAIR BACK

All of us, some time or the other, have had to meet a government officer in his office. One thing we would definitely have not missed noticing, whether the officer is present in the room or away. It could be the Finance, Police, PWD, Electricity, Secretariat or any other. It can be seen across all departments of the government, regardless of their intense rivalry with each other, or contrasting nature of work.

What is it ?

 It is a white towel spread neatly on the officer’s chair back.

Why do they keep it that way ?

Here are some answers from Social Media …

The most common explanation is, its because of the sweat. Historically AC has not been common in Indian government offices despite the very hot and humid weather. Sitting on an office chair, your back will sweat and the sweat will get into the upholstery of the backrest, and gradually it will start smelling. Placing a towel soaks up the sweat to some extent and prevents this from happening. I have seen my father doing it in his office, and also my bosses doing it in their chairs. Now probably it has become a common practice among the 'white collar' jobs - even in AC offices.

Some say it's a legacy of the Raj Era. The British, according to them, found the common gamchha too thin to be able to absorb the gush of perspiration that summer in the subcontinent can squeeze out of a human body and that something more robust was needed to insulate the chair from the sweat.

Another explanation is more relevant: A white towel simply represents an invisible screen that separates the ruler from the ruled, an identity maker in the strictly hierarchical nature of Indian bureaucracy, an unspoken system of power system.

Officials I talked to, see both merits and demerits of this weird practice. In the old days, towels were handy to wipe hands, to wipe out dust and ink stains. These days, hardly anyone uses fountain pens, and increasingly, office places are cleaner than decades ago.

Surprisingly these towels are NEVER used to wipe your hands or face. They are there as a sign of authority. The towels of the Ministers, IAS and top bureaucrats are pristine white; gradually getting less white as you go down the bureaucratic ladder, becoming slightly worn out or yellowing with age at the lowest level. Another factor noticed is that it stops at the lowest officer stage. No clerk is seen with a towel on his chair. Probably the perk starts at the officer level, giving a sense of importance to the high seat.

Personally though, everyone believes that this is a needless practice, but this culture is deeply ingrained. As you can put it- “I am telling you as a friend, without the towel on the chair, it is like something is missing  - koi puchega nahi – your authority is through the towel.”

As these towels aren’t free, picture in your mind lakhs of chairs decked with towels. The government bureaucracy employs lakhs and that’s not counting the Armed forces. Imagine crores of rupees being spent annually to satisfy babudom. One senior official confided that it is used as a status symbol. “It’s a matter of prestige; a matter of maintaining hierarchy”.

It is difficult to tell if our maharajas or mukhtiyars in the past ever fell into this ‘refined taste’. Throw in the towel! No more race for status or false appearances.

And now - brothers from across the border in Nepal have taken to the towel culture, and it has spread across their country too, adopting this bizarre culture.

 It turns out that towel-on-the-chair accounts are more common in India, where this invention took place. However, friendly officers themselves often lament that few people have bothered to understand its origin. The colonial masters themselves never covered their chairs with towels.

Then there’s the trouble of the towel sliding down off the back of the chair from repeated sittings and would then get caught in the wheels of the chair, which would then have to be fixed. So a new “Do it Yourself” has evolved – of “How to keep the towel from sliding off the chair” or, how to keep it in place, which of course involves some expenses too. But more of that in my next post.