Akal Rice & General Mills

Akal Rice & General Mills sits on Bazakhana Road, right in the Bhagta Bhai Ka area. It is a familiar sight for anyone who lives around here. The building has seen many harvests and the weather has worn down the paint a little, but the machines inside are still running strong. We have a large yard where the trucks park, and during the peak times, you can barely see the ground for all the grain being unloaded. The smell of raw rice is everywhere. It is a dry, earthy scent that gets into everything. My hands are usually rough from handling the bags, but you get used to it. We do not have a corporate strategy or anything like that. We just wake up, open the gates, and start the motors. If something breaks, we fix it ourselves with whatever tools we have on hand. The local kids sometimes play near the edge of the property, and we have to tell them to stay away from the moving parts. In the evenings, when the noise finally stops, the silence feels very heavy. We sit outside for a bit before heading home. It is a community thing, being part of the local economy on Bazakhana Road. We take the grain, we process it, and we send it on its way. It is honest work and it keeps us busy through most of the year.