Shanmugavel Modern Rice Mill

Over at 15 Palayamkottai Road in Kangeyam, you’ll find our mill. Shanmugavel Modern Rice Mill has been a part of this landscape for years. The sound of the huller and the dryer is the background music to our lives. Kangeyam is a place where people know the value of hard work, and we try to keep up with that. The Palayamkottai Road is always full of vehicles, and the dust from the road mixes with the smell of parboiled rice. It is a heavy smell, one that sticks to your skin and clothes, but we don't mind it much anymore. We spend our days making sure the grain is moving through the machines correctly. Sometimes a belt breaks or a motor gets too hot, and we have to stop everything to fix it. Those are the long days. We don't have a lot of time for sitting around. Usually, we are moving bags or checking the moisture in the paddy. It is a rough and tumble environment, not like a clean office in the city. Our hands are usually calloused and our faces are often sweaty from the heat of the machinery. We just keep the mill running as best as we can, day after day, and that is about the whole story of what happens here.