Charushilpa Wood Crafts

Down here in Keerukuzhy at 3/5/89, we spend most of our daylight hours in the workshop. Pathanam Thitta is a good place to be, even when the humidity makes the wood a bit stubborn to work with. Charushilpa Wood Crafts has been operating out of this same building for a generation now. We don't use a lot of fancy modern machines. We still prefer using the hand tools that were passed down to us. You can usually hear the sound of the chisels and hammers long before you see the shop. We don't have a big neon sign, just a simple one by the front gate that’s started to fade a bit. People in the area know where we are if they need a chair fixed or a new table built. The floor is always thick with wood curls and sawdust. I try to sweep up on Saturday afternoons, but it never stays clean for long. We don't even have a computer in the shop. If someone wants to order something, we just write the details down in a battered old ledger we keep on the bench. It might be a slow way of doing things compared to the big city shops, but it works for us. We don't see any reason to change how we work after all these years. We just like the wood and the quiet.