The lentil factory
December 15, 2006
During Navaratri, I spent a lot of time in a room that was comparatively smoke-free because I just couldn’t breathe in the yagya hall (see image below). Sitting in the open window, I could see the huge Varadaraja Temple across the street, the 2nd largest Vishnu temple in India, as well as the usual sights of traffic, palm trees and people going about their business. India is a great place to just sit and watch the world go by.
Behind the yagya stala (house) was a lentil processing plant and it never ceased to amaze me how many different ways farmers brought their lentils in for processing. It ranged from a small (roughly 25 lb) sack on a bicycle or motor bike, a 3 wheeler truck-ette, the trunk of a car, or for the really big loads a bullock cart as you see above.
I’d guess those sacks are 200 lbs at least…and the bullock may be slow, but it costs a lot less than gas.
For the most part, they all seem to be pretty well treated, especially with their brightly painted horns, in the national colors no less!
And the smoke in the yagya room….I really don’t see how the priests could breathe much less chant! I could never take it for more than a few minutes at a time.
