Sri Lakshmi Rice Mills

Sri Lakshmi Rice Mills is out on Sagar Road in the Ghatikoppa area. If you drive past, you will see the big gate and usually a couple of trucks waiting their turn. It's a dusty stretch of road, so everything we own has a thin layer of brown on it by the end of the day. We start early, usually before the sun is even fully up, because it gets too hot to move heavy bags once the noon heat hits. The machines at the mill have a rhythm to them. You can tell if something is wrong just by listening to the hum while you're drinking your morning tea. We don't have a lot of fancy office space. Mostly it is just the processing floor and the storage area. We spend a lot of time sweeping because rice husks get into every corner you can imagine. People around Ghatikoppa know us well enough. We see the same faces every harvest time. We don't spend money on advertising or anything like that. The work just comes in because we are here on Sagar Road and we have been here for a long time. Some days are long and my back hurts from standing on the concrete floors, but that is part of the job. We just keep the mill running and try to stay out of the sun when we can. It is a simple life but it keeps us busy from morning till night.