So near and yet sofa!

Not everyone can be Hanuman. He carried a portable sofa with himself. Captured by the rakshasas, he was paraded before Ravana in the durbar hall. He created a sofa according to his specification- adjusted to the correct height and with the appropriate amount of cushion, using his own tail! From this vantage point, he scanned his audience- brimming with “I am the master of all I survey” and took on his adversary. The sofa gave him this added edge and advantage.

The rest of us have to make-do with sofas that come in all kinds of flavors. When I visit someone’s home, I am always wary of the sofa I am about to settle in. Some sofas are veritable “sinkholes”- the kind of sinkholes you read about in the newspaper these days. The entire road suddenly caves in and takes with it cars and even entire trucks! Some sofas are exactly this kind. The moment you sit on the sofa, it sucks you into its depths like the famed Bermuda Triangle. There is absolutely no time to take evasive action. Peering from the precincts of this well helplessly, you will soon need external help to extricate yourself from this blackhole!

At the opposite end of the cushion-spectrum are sofas that are “all bone and no flesh”! Decades of usage has ensured that the foam is virtually non-existent. Newton’s third law of motion comes fully alive. You impose your weight on the sofa. Its bony, wooden frame resists and gives back a counterpunch! After a few minutes, it hurts badly. You try different antics- using your palms as a support pillar to hoist yourself that extra inch and lessen the weight on your seat. When the attention is focused on the lower part of your anatomy, coherent conversation with the host is impossible!

In some cases, the cushion is a free spirit. Each time you adjust yourself, the cushion is equally animated and moves along with you. In extreme cases, much to your horror, it bounces off the sofa and falls over. It is now a scramble- to retrieve the cushion and give it back its rightful place. We don’t know who is more red-faced- the host for owning such a sofa or you…for being so terribly clumsy!

They talk about the “swinging sixties”. That was before my time. The late-1970s and early-80s had two major inventions that virtually defined these decades. One was of course the “safari suit” that invaded and captured the man’s wardrobe. The other was the “sofa cum double bed”.  No home worth its salt could exist without a “sofa cum double bed”. It was like owning an i-phone- your social status was tied to it.

When you visited someone's place, the first activity was a “live demo” on the functioning of the sofa-cum-double-bed.  It was truly a path-breaking invention. When space was at a premium, it functioned as a compact sofa by the day. And come night-time, you could unfurl and expand it into a full-sized bed. How you reacted to this “demo” had a direct bearing on what proceeded thereafter. A lukewarm reaction got you lukewarm, stale coffee. “Wow! This sofa-cum-double-bed is absolutely stunning…and wonderful! It is so-so comfortable!” Such a reaction endeared you to the host and got you the best coffee- strong, hot, and frothy and even some tidbits to go with it!

Sofas have evolved over the decades.  There are sofas that rock and sofas where you can hoist your feet and rest, all with the click of a button. We spot even “massage sofas”- where the cushion curls and squeezes your sides, to “loosen the tension in the muscles” so that you feel “light and relaxed”.

Regardless of the amount of “research” you’ve done before purchasing the sofa, once it sits in your living room, you invariably wonder- maybe, we should have got a less bulky sofa, or perhaps a lighter color.  Like all else, it is a case of being so near and yet sofa!