Mahaveer Koha Mill

Shivhara is a small place and our mill is right here in the village. We focus on making koha, which is a lot of work if you want to do it right. The process involves soaking and then flattening the grain. You can hear the thumping of the machines from the main road. It is a rhythm that we have gotten used to over the years. Some days the machines act up and we have to spend hours fixing a belt or greasing the gears. My clothes are usually covered in some kind of grain dust by the time I go home for lunch. The mill is an old shed with a tin roof so it gets very noisy when it rains. We don't have many employees, just a few local men who know how to handle the heavy bags. We have a small yard out front where the trucks park to load up. It is not a very tidy place because there is always some husk or leftover grain on the ground. We sweep it up but it just comes back the next day. People from the post office nearby sometimes stop by to say hello. It is a quiet life except for the noise of the mill. We don't do any big marketing. Word of mouth is how people find us in this part of the country. We just keep the machines running and hope for a good season every year.