EUROPEAN WOODCRAFT ARTICLES CAME TO BE INTRODUCED IN A BIG WAY IN OFFICE PREMISES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND LATER IN OFFICES OF THE GOVT. OF BRITISH INDIA AND BUSINESS. ESTABLISHMENTS. THUS A NEW TYPE OF DECISION MAKING PARADIGM GOT A CONSCIOUS SUPPORT FROM BRITISH INDIAN BUREAUCRACY. < Peedha with filligree in the rear plank, Image courtesy: Ranbir Singh octoser | 2019 | ART&DEAL PEEDHA -FORM, AESTHETICS AND IMPACT OF MECHANIZATION ON INDIGENOUS INDIAN FURNITURE - RANBIR SINGH & RENU eedha, a low-level Indian chair made of wood or iron stripes used by the rural household women in Haryana since the times immemorial has recently caught attention of the designer homes. Connoisseurs and manufactures’ contribution can be noted in the form of collection, preservation and setting up of workshops to assemble and fabricate imitations, utilizing resources of both the Government and private promoters and inspiring people to adopt and popularize indigenous life style by expressing cultural bonds with traditional furniture so that Indian house could once again reclaim the lost ambiance. Attention towards the Peedha first caught eye of the collectors followed by resurgence in academic inquiry sometime in the ‘mid-1980s during preparation and planning for the Festival of India that was organized abroad in several countries (UK 1982, USA 1985 and USSR 1987)1 by Ministry of External Affairs and collaborating departments of Govt. of India to showcase India’s rich cultural heritage in which traditional crafts and art was displayed. Behind the resurgence, there has been fascinating narrative of history2, 4, 10 that required our attention. The landscape did not change in rapi sequence as it did during colonial era when Europeans were making inroads into the regional cultural heartlands of India after successfully establishing their trading centers in coastal kingdoms. Initially, they did not intervene much into the Hindu and Mughal home architectural decoration and furnish but consciously and leisurely imported designs for furniture that could furnish their own residential and socializing spaces, such as clubs apart from offices that were set up on European pattern. Siegfried Giedion12 in his ‘Mechanization takes Command’ constructs a ‘narrative account of this history that addressed furniture’s relations to both the body and the architectural shell. In the process he introduces a range of issues -the notion of culturally determined postures, the idea of comfort and relaxation, the science of physiology and advances in technology that have had a bearing upon furniture over the centuries: The views were endorsed in a paper presented by Mirzana Lozanovaska in a Conference in Australia.11 European woodcraft articles came to be introduced in a big way in office premises of the East India Company and later in offices of the Govt. of British India and business establishments. Thus a new type of decision making paradigm got a conscious support from British Indian bureaucracy. However, it had nothing to do with the domestic furniture in the vast countryside and mofussil towns of India. In those times there was a total absence of the mass production and marketing of wooden furniture for Indian homes except that the affluent class comprising native people, which had an intimate contact with the new rulers, searched comfort and status in the alien furniture, which could then become available from workshops set up by the British origin occupational men. Whereas indigenous furniture such a Peedha continued to be crafted with hand tools, the Europeans used machines, for smooth finish. As lacquered furniture having European origin gained popularity, the charm for Indian handmade items declined with