Seating confusionDear Sir,My family and I went to watch an inter-school quiz competition organised by the Indian Womens’ Association (IWA) at Birla Public School last week. There we witnessed a scene which, I believe, could have been avoided with a little planning or handled with a bit more tact and diplomacy.When a family sat in a row in front of us, just before the programme started, a member of the association approached them and asked them to move from there, quite rudely, I thought. I was shocked at the way she spoke to the family, raising her voice. The family then left their seats. I don’t know what motivated the member of the association to behave with the family in such a way. The seats occupied by them were far behind the front rows and there was no board or any other sign nearby, indicating that those chairs were reserved for anyone. If the organisers wanted to restrict people sitting in that row, a signboard saying “Reserved” could have been put up there. I really felt uncomfortable over the “encounter” and I think the family had left the premises without watching the programme. And yet another incident happened at the food stalls for visitors to the programme. I felt that the prices charged for the items were a bit too high. I went to a counter apparently selling “home-made food” to buy falooda, a cold beverage whose main ingredients are milk and dry fruits, for my son. They were selling the drink at QR10 for a small glass. And the falooda given to us tasted like just diluted milk without any fruit content and its other usual ingredients. But the most worrying thing was that my son found some plastic pieces inside his falooda. I dread what would have happened if he had swallowed them along with his drink. I went to the stall’s managers with my son’s half-finished falooda drink to make a complaint. They admitted that the plastic pieces could have fallen from the container while adding ice cream to the drink. But they did not show any concern about it, taking the issue lightly. So I tried to contact one of the organisers to take up the issue but unfortunately I couldn’t find anyone. I approached a woman sitting at the ticket counter but she expressed her helplessness, advising us to go to the security person standing nearby. When I went to him, he also pleaded his helplessness over the matter. We hope the organisers will look into these two incidents and take measures to avoid them in future programmes. Sadique K P (e-mail address supplied)