Railway Tawah

By Angelo Bissersarsingh

A fictional account of Roti-making using railway equipment :>)

Now as any good Indo Trinidadian knows, a light, fluffy paratha roti cannot be made without a tawah which is anything but flawlessly smooth. The thin sheet of dough leavened with rich ghee is laid on the hot metal disc, suspended over an earthen chulha (fireplace) and beaten like a thief with a dabla ( wooden paddle) . The resulting delectable shreds are called Buss-up-Shutt in local parlance because of the resemblance it bears to a torn shirt.

Well, mainly because of the high cost of ghee, paratha remained a delicacy for special occasions like weddings, pujas and such high ceremony, the pancake-like, bland, sada roti being the daily staple. In the 1950’s, an Indian wedding could require an outlay of about a year’s wages for a labourer, so that all economies had to be observed without being too parsimonious for that would inadvertently attract the snide sort of commentary that makes village life miserable.

Preparing "Buss up Shott" for a Trinidad Wedding on a tawah.

Gokool lived in a modest wooden abode on a couple acres of muddy riceland near the southern Trinidad village of Penal. His subsistence and that of his family of three daughters and a son depended almost solely on what provisions and grain he could cultivate on his land, supplemented by the occasional wages earned from odd jobs around the district. Gokool was particularly distressed when his eldest daughter, Meena , aged fourteen, received a proposal from a village boy. Of course, the age of the girl was unimportant, child brides are a norm of Indian culture; however, what perplexed Gokool was the source of the finances for the upcoming nuptials.

A very modest wedding could cost, even in those days, as much as three hundred dollars. Gokool thought to defray some of this expense, by preparing a very simple menu which consisted of dhan (paddy) rice raised on his own land, curried baigan and aloo, paratha roti and anchar. By dint of strict parsimony he had succeeded in scraping up money for most of the ingredients, including the flour and ghee for the paratha. His main quandary now lay in the acquisition of a large tawah for preparing the roti since the small, fire-blackened one in his wife’s outdoor kitchen answered not to the purpose.  A tawah of sufficient dimensions would be obtainable from the local shop for the sum of ten dollars, but with his finances almost completely exhausted, Gokool could ill afford it.

Obliquely opposite Gokool’s homestead was the Penal station of the Trinidad Government Railway. Every day since it was opened in 1914, the station was the halt of several trains heading to the final depot of the railway at Siparia. From the seven o’clock train to the last one at four in the afternoon, the platform was a hive of activity as passengers and freight were deposited and boarded with ant-like fervor. The main road from Penal to the village of San Francique ran across the railway lines.

  To avoid carnage precipitated by daring motorists trying to race across the lines before the endless procession of freighter and passenger carriages of the train began to traverse the intersection, the railway authorities installed an electric signal . This device, operated by the station porter, consisted of a pole at the junction itself from which electric switches controlled a series of flashing lights, bells and signage. As soon as the train began to depart from the station, the porter would activate the signals, whereupon a large metal disc painted in red would descend from the pole, and a cacophony of bells would sound, accompanied by flashing red lights. Not even a deaf-mute could ignore the signal one it was activated.

It was this metal disc which seemed the answer to Gokool’s conundrum. Next morning, bright and punctual as usual, the porter, a wizened negro called Watson, made ready to trigger the signal and close the motorway. With characteristic regularity, the lights and bells flashed and sounded, but the hinge upon which the metal plate pivoted, was bare. Exercising the zeal of the menial public servant when discovering a theft of the Queen’s property, Watson raised a hue and a cry, police from Siparia were summoned , who recorded a copious ream of notes, and did very little else. The Public Works department was assigned to replace the disc, but with typical sloth, never got around to completing the job.

Counterweight from a TGR Railway Signal

Well, the mystery of the missing signal disc was never satisfactorily solved. It remained one of many unresolved issues in the haphazard annals of the Siparia Police Station. All that remains to be said is that the wedding of Meena, daughter of Gokool , went off without a hitch and that the channa and aloo on the  plain menu was graced by the lightest , fluffiest paratha roti that was ever beaten on the hot surface of a railway tawah.