Mahaluxmi Rice Mill

Mahaluxmi Rice Mill is located in Jhgarpuri village, right on the Kashi Pur Road in Gadarpur. Being out here in Udham Singh Nagar means we are surrounded by fields and a lot of greenery. The mill itself is a big part of our lives. When the season starts, the whole place smells like fresh paddy and dust. We get trucks and tractors pulling up all day long, and the yard gets covered in husks. It’s not a clean or quiet job. The noise of the mill running is something you eventually stop hearing after a few hours. We don’t have a fancy office with big glass windows. Our workspace is mostly the mill floor and the storage area where the bags are piled up. Sometimes birds fly into the high rafters and stay there for the day. We are just a group of local people from the village and nearby areas who know how to run the machinery. Most of us have been around rice all our lives, so we don't need any training manuals to know when things are running right. During the monsoon, the rain hits the tin roof so hard you can't hear yourself talk, but we just keep working anyway. It’s a rough and ready kind of life, tied to the land and the crops. We just do our part in the cycle and go home tired at night.