Tyrannic Machine Pounding
When the machine was first imported for milling paddy, the rice produced was not welcomed by the people. It was dubbed heating and evil smelling. Some rejected it on the grounds of orthodoxy. It is a surprise to see how this very rice has become a demi god, dictating through the degenerate fashion world, encased in the armour of ignorance!
Let us see how this has disturbed our social economy enriching a few mill owners and throwing out of job, lakhs of people. Thousands of men and women who lived by husking paddy have bit the dust. It is difficult to procure employment to these, dethroned to fatten the purse of a few capitalists. To quell the blazing diseases born of feeding on devitalised rice, money in crores has to be thrown in for medicines and hospitals. In the State proverbially disinclined to spend for social services, the treasury, to meet the bill of remedial measures, is ever empty!
Leg Pounding
Leg-pounding may be resorted to if hand-pounding is found difficult and delaying! A little imagination can produce for the merchants and capitalists suitable low pressure substitutes to break the paddy.
It could be just pounded to yield whole rice by petty hand or leg-powered pounders. Just have a look at the picture. The invention shown in it was functioning in the hulling workshop of an imaginative gentleman who came forward to meet the growing demand for handpounded rice.
One need not despair for the dearth of workers to produce hand pounded rice. Men can handle the job equally well. The picture shows men at work.
The dark spot in the picture, seen near the heap of whitish rice, is the paddy pit. Paddy is heaped in this pit. A long wooden rafter is fixed at one end to a fulcrum by a transverse nail. To the other end is vertically connected a thick wooden plug with a point encased in an iron cup. Men at the left end of the picture have lowered the shorter piece of the cross rafter into a pit by a downward kick. When the legs are simply removed, the plug end falls due to its own weight. The iron cup heavily pounds the paddy in the pit. The men give a kick again at the other end. The plug end goes up and falls into the paddy again. This goes on until the paddy throws off the outer covering. The pestle will fall at least six times a minute.
This is not a troublesome or difficult job. The unskilled labour can get its daily wage. The force and pressure on the paddy do not result in the breaking of the points or the removal of the essential bran. The greatness of handpounded rice lies in its retention of the bran.
Consume rice-bran
A gentieman approached a famous doctor-friend and got his wife examined for weakness and anaemia. The doctor easily discovered what was wrong. He commanded a rich and fashionable clientale. To suit their long purse strings, his prescriptions bore equally lengthy and teeth breaking fashionable names. It was immaterial whether even a little ginger water could have supplied the recipe. His high-sounding prescriptions usually matched his strange sounding diplomas!
But the person who sought his advice on this occasion was his friend. The doctor took him aside and gave a nice smile on the sly. He told him that this was just a “fashion-disease”. The friend could not understand. The medico questioned, whether he wanted a money-grabbing prescription or just a simple natural remedy and proceeded to explain;
“Your better half is suffering from Vitamin B deficiency. This problem is the inheritance of machine polished rice. Please purchase from the bazaar a few pies worth of rice or wheat bran every day, and mix it with your cooking, soup, stew or anything, and ask her to eat. Just in a couple of months, she would be alright!” Thus prescribed the Doctor.
Energy Ratio Comparision
A good and sensible doctor will prescribe the most natural treatment. He will advise the patient to take in bran to supply the deficient vitamin B. The human being will then be doing the same thing as the cattle. One cannot help it. The bran is fed to the cattle. Humans also get the same treatment. This same vitamin B will cost many rupees a tin if the gaudily advertised stuff is purchased.
The data given below will show the difference between the machine polished rice and the hand-pounded unpolished rice.
Rice – Protein- Minerals – Iron – Vitamin B
Hand pounded unpolished rice – 8.49% – 0.70% – 2.22% – 100
Machine polished rice – 6.85% – 0.50% – 1.02% – 26 (Coonoor Publication)
There is no need to feel elated at 26 units at least of vitamin B remaining in machine polished rice. There are many who will purchase only flower white rice. Extra polish is given to secure this effect. Nothing worth mentioning of Vitamin B remains after this treatment. The protein content and other essentials get lost to a great extent in the process of washing the rice and pouring away the conji.
Polished Hand Pound!
There was a feast in a friend’s house. The rice served was whiter than white itself. Unconciously my face must have indicated disgust at this rice. The friend noticed it and conversation ensued as below.
Friend: This is handpounded rice! What are you thinking? No variety is used in our house except the hand-pounded one!
Myself: How did you get this high grade polish on this?
Friend: The merchant attempted to cheat me by supplying dull coloured unpolished rice. Is this fellow receiving any lower price? I threw away the rice and demanded an explanation. ‘Fellow give it fourmore turns polish!’ I ordered him. This beautiful consignment just now arrived!
What a shameful state? Why purchase this ‘hand-pounded’ rice putting oneself to special expense and special search and trouble? Handpounded rice connotes unpolished rice in essence and hand-husked. In this much force is not used to the detriment of essential ingredients. Does the bran choose to remain if hand-polished? When the bran is gone what is the special merit in this having come from hand-pounding? Will the disease refrain from attacking the devitalised consumer?
One can see the display of this ignorance even in Doctors’houses. The outermost rough rind or husk of the paddy stands removed in handpounded rice. It is immaterial whether the result is obtained by hand-pounding or leg-pounding. The bran and the points should not get separated. Devotion and one-pointedness are lacking in these days in the performance of spiritual rites. They are reduced to meaningless formal observances. The mind and the heart are hot there. We see this in the Sandhya and Japa prescribed for the Hindu Dwijas. The kernel of truth and the essence are forgotten. Convention only is followed. This situation arises in the matter of the hand-pounded rice. In name only the rice is hand-pounded. In essence it is as polished as the machine rice and as bad in result.
The picture given here illustrates yet another stage in getting whole unpolished rice by leg-pounding. The pestle has come down with force and dropped into the pit containing paddy. Easy contrivances like this could be manufactured with ease. There is no need to wait for conveniences of cities. Tons and tons of paddy are brought from villages where they are harvested, into towns for milling into rice by the rice machines. There is no necessity for this transportation from the production centre.
Conveniences could be created at the villages where paddy is harvested. We have hundreds and thousands unemployed man roaming in the city streets. These can usefully migrate to these villages. They will get their food and honourable living. The cities also will be rid of the pestering sore of beggary and unemployment. There will be no necessity to export paddy from the villages. Rice manufactured in this healthy fashion could be sent into centres of consumption. Our scientists and research scholars will have to get busy to find means to preserve such rice from decay. The rich contents of this unpolished hand-pounded rice quickly decompose and become a prey to moisture and insects.
Economical
There is little difference in price between hand-pounded and machine rice. It is high polishing that increases the cost. Many people very quickly measure out in rupees, annas, pies, even patriotism. The new wave of enthusiasm for hand-pounded rice comes handy to make big money for some merchants. These gamblers to secure easy fortunes could be checked! It would take very little pains and very little time to mass introduce easy contrivances for procuring hand-pounded unpolished rice. The money-makers will soon find that there is no scope for exaggerated prices for really cheap products. If machining paddy can take away only the outer husk, the situation can be remedied very well.