The Empty Chair — A Ritual Every UAE Community Event Needs
At every UNMUTE evening, in every city, one chair stays empty. Nobody sits in it, not once, from the first breath of the room to the last. This is the smallest thing we do, and it is the thing people remember longest.
By Dr S Pujah · Founder, UNMUTE
What the chair is for
The empty chair is for the friend who could not come tonight. It is for the person who is no longer with us. It is for the version of you that you left at the door — the tired one, the scared one, the one who was not sure they would be welcome. It is for the story that is not yet ready to be told.
We do not explain the chair. We simply place it. And somehow, without a single word, every person in the room understands.
Why the ritual matters more here
The UAE is a country of arrivals. Almost every person in the room has left someone behind — a mother in Kerala, a father in Manila, a sister in Cairo, a grandmother whose funeral they could not attend. We are a community built on absence as much as presence.
The empty chair honours what we do not usually name at gatherings. It says — the people we love are here with us, even when they are not. Our grief is welcome in this room. Our longing has a seat at the table.
How to hold the ritual in your own gathering
You do not need UNMUTE to hold this. If you are hosting a community iftar, a majlis, a book club, a school reunion, a hospital ward gathering, a company town hall — try this. Place one extra chair. Do not fill it. If someone asks, say gently — that chair is for whoever, or whatever, we brought with us tonight that we do not usually make room for.
You will feel the room change. It changes because ritual is older than words, and the body knows the language of ritual even when the mind does not.
If you place one chair at your next gathering, and leave it empty, and say nothing — you have already begun. That is where an UNMUTE chapter takes root. Not in a launch, but in a chair.
— Dr S Pujah
Questions people ask
Is the empty chair a religious ritual?
No. The empty chair belongs to no faith and to every faith. It has been held in mosques, churches, temples, hospital chapels, corporate boardrooms and school libraries — because it names something the human being knows before any religion teaches it.
Can we adapt the ritual for our own event?
Please do. Rituals belong to the communities that hold them. If UNMUTE ever gave the world one small gift, we hope this is it — an empty chair in every room where people gather to be known.
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