Shas­tri Boodan

Kav­inash “Fish” Ram­per­sad now has non-stop or­ders for chu­las —the tra­di­tion­al East-In­di­an fire­side/stove.

Ram­per­sad, 31, who is the sole bread­win­ner of his fam­i­ly, be­came one of the scores of Trinida­di­ans who were forced to stop their op­er­a­tion af­ter be­ing brand­ed a non-es­sen­tial work­er when the COVID-19 re­stric­tions were im­ple­ment­ed last month.

With bills to pay and the need to put food on his ta­ble, Ram­per­sad prayed for some guid­ance from God as to his next move. Not­ing what hap­pened next, he said his good for­tune came from the earth.

At the be­gin­ning of April, how­ev­er, he stum­bled up­on a vein of sap­ate clay on the fam­i­ly’s Pe­nal prop­er­ty when a back-hoe was ex­ca­vat­ing an area of the prop­er­ty.

Ram­per­sad said his moth­er asked him to build a chu­la us­ing the clay and he im­me­di­ate­ly start­ed work­ing on it. He said he learned the skill through the con­stant ob­ser­va­tion of his el­der fam­i­ly mem­bers while grow­ing up and de­cid­ed to trans­late what he had ab­sorbed men­tal­ly over the years in­to re­al­i­ty.

Ram­per­sad said he even­tu­al­ly post­ed his com­plet­ed cre­ation on Face­book just to show what he had ac­com­plished dur­ing his time at home. He said he was sur­prised when he was im­me­di­ate­ly bom­bard­ed with re­quest from var­i­ous peo­ple who want­ed a chu­la and were will­ing to pay for it. He said with no oth­er in­come com­ing in, he took the scores of re­quests se­ri­ous­ly.

A tra­di­tion­al chu­la is placed on a met­al steel drum cov­er as a base to en­sure the heat of fire­wood does not burn through the ta­ble the de­vice is placed on. He said bar­rel cov­ers are sourced from a fel­low vil­lager who is al­so glad to earn some cash in these try­ing times.

Ram­per­sad said the clay is mixed with ce­ment as a binder then coat­ed with fresh cow dung as a sealant us­ing a tra­di­tion­al process called leep­ay­ing. The chu­la is then dried in the shade be­fore be­ing turned over to its new own­er.

Chu­las are usu­al­ly pow­ered with fire­wood or coals and used in an out­door shed. The ear­ly East In­di­an im­mi­grants used chu­las well in­to the third quar­ter of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Chu­las were grad­u­al­ly re­placed by gas stoves that could cook in­doors with­out the has­sle of smoke and hav­ing to gath­er fire­wood. How­ev­er, Ram­per­sad said the aro­mas cre­at­ed by the smoke fire of the chu­la in­fuse a rich­er and unique nos­tal­gic flavour in­to foods which some peo­ple still pre­fer to­day.

Ram­per­sad said with fam­i­lies now forced to spend more time to­geth­er at home, many want to go back to the tra­di­tion­al style of cook­ing where prepar­ing food was used as an el­e­ment of so­cial bond­ing. He said peo­ple are al­so wor­ried about their LPG gas sup­plies and this may be prompt­ing the de­mand in pur­chas­es, since many want an al­ter­na­tive cook­ing op­tion.

A chu­la, Ram­per­sad said, can last for years, adding he is hap­py not on­ly for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn a few dol­lars dur­ing the cur­rent hard times but even hap­pi­er to see this as­pect of the cul­ture of the peo­ple of T&T be­ing re­vived in try­ing times.

Pho­tos cour­tesy Kav­inash Ram­per­sad

Chu­la 01,02,04- Kav­inash “Fish” Ram­per­sad cre­ates his Chu­las at his Pe­nal Home.

chu­la 06- Shan­ti Ram­per­sad, cooks in one of her son’s chu­las

chu­la 03,05,07- Chu­las cre­at­ed by Kavinsh in ac­tion.