Process Technician

I spend most of my time out at the Vedanta Alumina site in Lanjigarh. Being a Process Technician in this part of Orissa means getting used to the dust and the heat of Kalahandi. My mailing address is over in Bhawanipatna, but the real work happens on the ground here. It’s a massive operation, and I’m just one person among many making sure the machinery behaves. The commute to Biswanathpur is something I do daily. It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s important. You spend your hours monitoring gauges and checking valves. Sometimes things break and you have to fix them fast. The landscape around here is rugged, which I’ve grown to appreciate over the years. We eat in the mess hall and talk about the shifts. There’s a specific rhythm to life at a plant like this. You follow the schedules and keep your head down. I’ve been doing this long enough that the noise of the plant sounds like silence to me now. It’s a long way from the big cities, but there is a sense of community among the technicians. We look out for each other. When the shift ends, I’m usually pretty tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. There is a lot of pride in just keeping the wheels turning day after day. It’s just me and the machines out here, doing what needs to be done. I usually walk back to the quarters while the sun sets over the hills.