Lena Rice Mill

Lena Rice Mill is over at No 15, Main Road, near the IBC Petrol Pump in Kallakurichi. If you’ve ever walked by, you probably noticed the dust and the sound of the hulling machines. It’s not a quiet place to work, but it’s what we do. My father set this mill up decades ago, and now my brother and I run the daily operations. We take in paddy from the local farmers in the area and process it. The machines we use are quite old, but they still get the job done. We don't have a marketing team or anything like that. Most of our work comes from people who just drive their tractors up to the front. We spend most of the day weighing sacks and making sure the grain is moving through the machines properly. When the power goes out, which happens more than we’d like, everything just stops. We sit outside and wait for it to come back on. It’s a hot job, and the husks can get everywhere, but we’re used to it by now. We see the same people every season, which is nice. The building itself is nothing special to look at. We just focus on getting the rice ready for the families who need it. It’s a lot of heavy lifting and long hours, but it’s a living. We’re just regular folks running a mill.