Why is there a towel in the Boss’s chair?

In every office you get to see a towel set on a chair where the officer sits. If you get a chance to enter into the room, I mean. 

It’s gripping when the landscape of Nepalese twitter flung into the awakening of the role of towel in every officer’s chair soon after Ashok Pokharel, Nepali twitter user, mentioned #Hello_Sarkar last Wednesday saying, “Why are there always the towels in the chairs of government officers? Are these bought from the government budget or by the staff themselves?”  The question was simple but the sequel it instigated was not. 

After three days #Hello_Sarkar replied to his tweet that the towel in the officer’s chair is obtrusive and it somehow degrades the aesthetics of the office. Wait a minute, so that the circular has been generated to reach to all the governmental departments giving the direction not to keep the towels in the chair. 

The question and solution both seem to be the joke. The government staff showed concern in this decision saying that the towels are kept there because staff may perspire while working all day and that the towel can later be washed unlike the chair. The authorities later clarified there is no order of restriction to buy the towel, rather the restriction is just not to put the towel in the chair. Haha!

Do you feel the towel demeans the beauty of governmental office? Well, I don’t. The purpose of draping the towel in the very chair might be, sometimes the staff have to wash hands or face and to dry up they use the towels. It might be partly true but while researching there is really an interesting story on how the tradition of that towel started. I would like to share here.

It started all from India. Nepal copycatted it. India was governed by East India Company before 1947 AD. In that period British people would work with the Indians shift-wise. The Indians would be working in the morning shift up to 1PM and the British would take their turn afterwards. Indians had this particular habit of applying mustard oil all over their head. When they sit on the chair the hair oil will be dabbed in the headrest of the chair. It would be all greasy when it was time for the white people to sit in- please note that the white people wore white shirts when in office. So, the British came up with the new rule that every chair where Indians do the morning shifts should be covered by the towel. Later on, after 1PM the towel would be removed to be kept back on tomorrow.

This is how towel tradition came in Nepal by emulating our neighbors. So, how do you reckon this tradition? Would you like it to be completely eradicated or leave this to individual choice? I prefer the second one, more because, Nepal has many many things to look on before we really have to look on these trivial matters.