A. Duraisamy Modern Rice Mill

The mill is situated at 4/354, K.P. Karadu Road. You can usually hear A. Duraisamy Modern Rice Mill before you even see the gate. The machines have a specific heavy thrum that vibrates through the floor. It’s a dusty place, no matter how much we sweep. If you work here, you just get used to having a thin layer of rice husks on your shoes by the end of the shift. Farmers bring their loads in on tractors or small trucks, and we spend the day unloading, processing, and bagging it up again. It’s physical work. We don’t have fancy air conditioning in the main area, just big fans that move the warm air around. The office is just a small room off to the side where we keep the scales and the books. We don’t spend much on advertising because the people who need us already know where we are on Karadu Road. It’s been this way for a long time. We have a couple of dogs that hang around the yard, waiting for someone to drop a bit of lunch. Sometimes the power goes out and everything goes silent, which is always a bit strange after the constant noise. We just sit outside then and wait for the grid to come back on. It’s a basic life, centered around the grain and the seasons. We just try to keep the machines running and the bags filled. It's loud and it's dusty, but it's what we know how to do. Most of us have been working here at the mill on Karadu Road for years, so we don't really think about the noise anymore.