An Ode To The Charpoy

What has four legs, a pliant, receiving body and has been around for centuries?

The charpoy (Or charpai)

Humble of name, no pretensions there, char as in four, pai as in legs.

Four legs carved, sometimes with decorations added, out of seasoned wood. And a surface created out of rope, cotton, jute, even plastic fibre, woven between the wooden legs, in any of a variety of tried and tested ways, to ensure equal distribution of weight, and no sagging. 

And yet, this piece of furniture has been as intrinsic a part of homes as the stove or the front door. 

The charpoy it is that receives the tired body, be it of the farmer as he returns from toiling in the field, or the woman who sighing lowers herself onto it, after all the chores are done.

Women spend afternoons sharing space on a charpoy, cleaning grain, cutting vegetables, embroidering or just gossiping. 

In winter, it is easy to pull the charpoy out into the courtyard and sit or lie basking in the gentle, soothing sunlight. In summer, the easy weave allows enough air to float underneath and cool the back, avoiding prickly heat. 

It is light enough to carry, balanced on the head; a sight seen often enough in villages, and sturdy enough to last through generations. 

 A seat of power, when village elders gather to discuss issues, a bier should the need arise, the charpoy is an old faithful; the sight of which can for many, evoke a nostalgic memory of happier days when life was less of a drudge.

Celebrated in paintings and in travelogues, the charpoy finds mention as a mobile bed that seafarers carried on to ships in the 19 th century, and features not just in at least two of the paintings by artist, Amrita Sher Gill, but in scenes of the life of Buddha… a supporting player, no doubt, almost invisible, yet ubiquitous.

And of course, we do see scenes around the charpoy in films. And if Gulzar celebrated the walking stick in a song in Mausam, the charpoy has its own place in  Hindi films too. ‘Jhopdi mein charpoy…’ goes the opening line of a song sung by Kishore and Asha in the film Mawali, which has Jeetndra and Sridevi executing acrobatic dance steps through the three-and-a- half minutes.

Off screen, the charpoy made news when during the outdoor shooting of Piku, Amitabh Bachchan chose the humble bed to recline in outside, in lieu of alternatives offered inside the guest house.

But recent times have found, at least in the towns and cities, the charpoy, like the holdall, the grinding stone, and the transistor radio, other stalwarts of 20th century life, vanishing from homes; being replaced by wooden beds.

Not quite…

Most recently, the charpoy found pride of place in an installation that celebrated its unique place in collective memory. At the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. 

The open air installation, curated by Ayush Kasliwal, a Jaipur-based furniture and product designer and Ramayudh Sahu, recreated the idea of the charpoy as a large metal frame that held many other frames within, with some of them holding woven ‘charpoy’ surfaces in bright colours, while wooden swings hung in other places. 

Not surprisingly, the installation had children instinctively clambering up and sitting on the topmost charpoys, or groups of kids climbing up to choose a perch while their mothers wandered through the rest of the exhibition. 

Others used the charpoys as a step up to the overhanging branches of the nearby tree, while a teen found refuge with a book on a charpoy ledge, far from the crowds,, out of sight.

The charpoy might be vanishing from urban habitats, but the fact that boutique owners from France and other European countries often shop for charpoys, (and tin suit cases)  has found them a new role as decorative conversation pieces in many western homes.  

Perhaps, like everything that was once Indian that comes back to us from the West, the charpoy too, might yet again find space in Indian homes.

Sathya Saran is a Consulting Editor at Penguin Random House.