The history of Beanbag and its affluence

Apoorv Sharma
2 min readNov 21, 2022

I live on the ground floor with a sliding window in my room, guarded by metal grills and my dog, Perki.

On the other side of this window, there’s a walking passage for society residents and a visitor’s parking area. Looking a bit further, ignoring the trees, there’s a temple that I’ve been seeing, and wishing to visit daily for 1.5 months now. Post that, there’s an extremely busy highway, and then the skyline.

Every evening, I make some tea for myself, get a cigarette, take the beanbag from another room, and put it beside the window. While I’m setting up the corner–keeping the cup of tea on the window sill, sliding its door open; Perki comes and sits on the beanbag. Every time.

Now, as a kid, I always believed that the day I’ll have my own beanbag, I’ll be rich. Why?

I belong to a lower-middle-class family that showered me with all the love, care, education, and stuff that they could afford to give me. But humans are greedy, they always wish for things they don’t have. Especially kids.

As a kid, I wanted multiple things that I never got when I wanted them. Like a robot that could speak, remote control cars, remote control helicopters, etc. But more than anything, I always wanted a beanbag.

Yes, the one I saw in Dil Chahta Hai, or the one in that roadside cafe where our bus to Ghaziabad passed from. I, always considered a beanbag as a sign of being affluent.

But now, when I have it, it feels normal. Like having a phone. Or a pen. Or bulb.

It doesn’t make me feel affluent or happier at all.

I hardly sit on it, in fact.

For Perki though, it’s the best thing in the house.

Because he knows that as soon as someone will sit on the beanbag, he can cuddle himself into their lap, look outside, and most importantly feel loved.

Now, that’s what affluence means, right?

It’s not monetary value but just VALUE.

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