Sree Lakshminarayan Flour Mills

Sree Lakshminarayan Flour Mills sits right in the middle of Sourastrapet, which is part of the whole Chickpet and Old Tharagupet area. If you’ve been here, you know the streets are narrow and there’s always someone pushing a cart or a scooter honking. Our address is 24/1, and it’s a place that stays white with flour dust no matter how much we sweep. We spend the whole day lifting heavy bags of wheat, ragi, and corn. The machines are old but they still run fine if you treat them right and oil them regularly. Customers come in with their own small bags, waiting for their grain to be ground. It gets really hot inside, especially in the afternoons, so we usually have a small radio playing to keep us going. My clothes are always covered in white powder by the time I go home. It’s a loud environment, you have to shout a bit to be heard over the hum of the motors. We don't do anything fancy here, just basic grinding. The neighborhood is very old, and we know most of the people who live in the lanes behind Huriupete. Sometimes the supply of grain is late because the trucks get stuck in the Chickpet traffic, but we just wait it out. It is a steady business and keeps us busy from morning till the shutters go down at night. There's a tea stall just around the corner that we visit twice a day to get a break from the noise.