Kenneth Vidia Parmasad (1946 – 17 April 2006) was an Indo-Trinidadian writer who specialized in writing children's books. Parmasad was also a noted lecturer at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine.
Parmasad was responsible for writing and collecting classic Indian folk stories for the Caribbean that had been passed down orally by the Indian indentured servants who were brought to the region in 1838. Parmasad's most notable work, Salt and Roti: Indian Folk Tales of the Caribbean (1984), was the first collection of Indian folk tales in the Caribbean.
Education
Parmasad attended the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine as an undergraduate where he earned a B.A. in Caribbean studies. He would later go on to lecture at his Alma Mater for many years on the same subject.
Salt and Roti (1984) Perhaps his most notable work, Salt and Roti is a collection of Parmasad's Indian folk tales of the Caribbean. The collection features sixteen different stories which include the titular "Salt and Roti" as well as "Sakchulee and the Rich Gentleman" and "Three Wise Fools".
List of folk tales
The Cat and the Rat
The Donkey that Tried to Bark
Three Wise Fools
The Golden Hair
Saved by Common Sense
The Foolish King
The Voice of the Flute
The Poisoned Roti
The Cunning Fox
Myna and Tota
Kingdom of the Blind
King Frog and the Snake
Rites of the Dead
The Pig Saves the King's Life
Sakchulee and the Rich Gentleman
Salt and Roti
Salt and Roti folk tale synopsis
A poor woman has nothing to feed her son except salt and roti, yet the boy eats it every day excitedly. Every day, on the boys way to work he pulls on the tail of one of the King's elephants to test his strength. The kings men notice the elephant is ill and discovering that the boy is pulling on the tail, they tell the king. The king desires what makes this boy so strong so they go to his mother and she tells them: "Salt and Roti". The king instructs the woman not to give the boy salt with his roti anymore, to which she acquiesces. The boy begins to lose his strength and eventually dies, much to the kings delight as he believes he has discovered the key to unlimited strength. The tale ends with the king proclaiming to all his people that they must now only eat salt and roti. The townspeople, shocked by this decree, leave as they all whisper "The King is mad. The King is mad."
Sakchulee and the Rich Gentleman
In this classic trickster tale, Parmasad describes the life of a poor orphaned servant boy, Sakchulee, in the care of his elder brother. In order to take care of Sakchulee, the elder brother gets a job for a Rich Gentleman, but his job comes with a stipulation: if the Rich Gentleman dismisses the elder brother from his job, then the elder brother gets to cut off the Rich Gentleman's nose and ears; however, if the elder brother quits, the Rich Gentleman gets to cut off his nose and ears. The Rich Gentleman tasks the elder brother to fill a barrel with water, but he finds that no matter how hard he tries, he is unable to fill the barrel. Eventually, the elder brother quits in frustration and surrenders his nose and ears to the Gentleman, returning to Sakchulee in defeat.
Sakchulee swears revenge on the Rich Gentleman and takes his elder brothers job with the same agreement. Sakchulee, much more clever than his older brother, discovers that the barrel has holes in the bottom and so he plugs them and successfully fills the barrel, quite to the Gentleman's surprise. So then, the Gentleman tasks Sakchulee to watch his horse. Sakchulee cuts of the horses' tail and sticks it in an ant-hill, telling the Rich Gentleman the horse got away from him and hid in the ant-hill, refusing to come out. The Rich Gentleman is livid at Sakchulee, but fearing to lose his ears and nose, does not dismiss him and rather tasks him to watch the cattle. The Rich Gentleman specifically requests Sakchulee "be sure that, every day, you take the cattle to the waterhole", but does not explicitly say to feed them, so Sakchulee lets them starve. The Gentleman once again was outraged but tasked Sakchulee to tend the sheep. Sakchulee proceeded to kill a sheep each day and eat it, then returned to the Gentleman saying that a robber had stolen them.