Sai Rice Mill

Being out here on Sangrur Road means we see a lot of traffic passing by. The mill is right there on the edge of the road and the noise of the trucks never really stops. Inside Sai Rice Mill it is a different kind of noise though. It’s the sound of the hoppers and the grain falling. We get here early in the morning when the air is still a bit cool. The first thing we do is check the machines to make sure everything is running okay from the day before. There are stacks of bags everywhere and sometimes it feels like we are running out of room. We just keep moving them around. The floor is concrete and it gets pretty hard on your feet after eight or nine hours. We don’t really have any big signs or anything to show off. People know where we are because of the address. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we have to wait around for it to come back on. That’s when we usually sit outside near the gate and watch the cars go toward Sangrur. It is not a complicated business but it keeps us busy enough. The seasons change and the rice comes in wet or dry and we just deal with it as it happens. It is a simple way to make a living and we have been doing it this way for a long time now. We just stay focused on the work.