It was around the time that the Cooperators Meet (Sahakari Sangamam) got underway at Nishagandhi auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday that, right across the road at the Jimmy George Indoor Stadium, former cultural affairs minister and CPM Polituburo member M A Baby stood up to talk at the 'Keraleeyam' seminar on pluralisam and multiculturalism.
Though he was not witness to what happened at the Sahakari Sangamam, the conduct of both the events projected a certain cultural idea that Baby found revolting.
King's throne
It was while waiting to be formally invited to the Keraleeyam seminar dais that Baby saw something that upset him.
On the wide raised stage were arranged white-covered double-seater sofas with low backrests. But bang in the middle was a high-back single chair, slightly higher than the rest and with wooden handrests on which were ornate carvings. Its position and design made the chair seem royal. It was as if a king's seat was flanked by lower-level seats for ordinary mortals.
Baby's worry perhaps was that the single chair was reserved for the minister for culture, Saji Cherian. He bared his concern right at the start of his speech.
Culture and its wide embrace
It was as part of the larger issue of culture that Baby questioned the seating arrangement. He spoke about it to elaborate his understanding of culture.
He quoted the Welsh socialist thinker, critic and novelist Raymond Williams to first establish that culture was a highly sophisticated and an all-encompassing word that meant more than just song and dance and literature and the fine arts.
Here is a brief on the word culture that Baby excerpted from Williams's work 'Keywords'. "Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. This is so partly because of the way in which it developed historically in several European languages but also mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in several distinct intellectual disciplines and in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought."
Therefore, Baby said, culture meant more than what would immediately come to mind when the word is invoked. "My image of culture is of something that has kept its arms wide open to embrace all that comes its way," Baby said. In other words, the concept is so broad as to include even the idea that is conveyed by a seating arrangement.
So to reinforce his point, Baby touched upon the special chair. "When I was seated in the first row I looked at the stage. Immediately, I felt very bad," he said, and as if not to offend anyone, he added: "I am relating something transparently, also for you to understand the width of culture."
Baby's culture shock
"Why did I get upset," he posed the question himself. "I found a neatly arranged seating facility and in the centre I found a slightly different more ornate chair. I was culturally upset," he said.
He was speaking about the subversion of the culture of equality. He said long ago he was the chairman of a Parliamentary Committee. At its first meeting, he found the chair of the chairman bigger than that of others. The first decision he took as chairman was to keep all the chairs of the committee equal. He was, therefore, someone who had strived to maintain the culture of equality.
"And here when I found a difference, I was deeply upset," Baby said. He was so upset that he thought of raising this issue with the minister himself. Thankfully, he didn't have to. Because, contrary to his fears, the 'special chair' was reserved for the chief guest of the day, the 80-year-old filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza. And not for culture minister Saji Cherian who like the others sat on the ordinary white sofa.
When he realised that the seat was reserved for Mirza, Baby said he was "relieved of the pain and anxiety I had developed".
Reservation policy
However, had Baby been present at the Sahakari Samagamam instead of at the Keraleeyam seminar, he would not have been relieved of his disenchantment.
There, 15 chairs were placed side by side on the dais but four in the middle looked different, very special. They had back cushions, higher backrests and wooden handrests. On these were seated Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Opposition Leader V D Satheesan, Cooperation Minister V N Vasavan and Ports Minister Ahammed Devarkoil. The others were plain plastic chairs whose ordinariness were masked by off-white seat covers.
By Baby's standards, this is low culture.
Extra special Chief Minister
Such special treatment that provokes a cultural socialist like Baby was on show even during the event organised to mark the arrival of the first ship to the Vizhinjam International Seaport on October 12. During this event, the Chief Minister alone was given special treatment on the dais. The seats were arranged in two rows for dignitaries -- ministers, Union minister, Opposition leader, senior bureaucrats and Adani group honchos.
The Chief Minister's chair was placed right in the middle of the two rows, separate from the rest and all alone, marking him out as the most important person of the evening. Raymond Williams and M A Baby would have found the cultural message projected by the Vizhinjam event, that one individual is extra special, deeply disturbing.
Apology of the Leftist Sufi
Nonetheless, even if Baby said he was relieved to find that the special seat was reserved for Mirza, the octogenarian filmmaker got the message. The man who had told the stories of ordinary people in socialist classics like 'Nukkad' and 'Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai' and widely known as the 'Leftist Sufi' instinctively knew that even he is not supposed to get the pride of place.
Mirza told why he asked for the chair. "I apologise for the chair I was sitting on because I find it very difficult to get up with my broken leg. I asked for this chair to be there because that was the only way I could get up as I needed the side handles to lift me up," he said. The filmmaker who had to be supported while walking had come with a walking stick.
