Faces and Frames from Pista House Hyderabad. A tribute to those workers.

I have already written about the entire Haleem making process in Pista House Hyderabad and you can refer to that here. This is not about the Haleem but the story of the people behind it and how I captured it in my camera.

Contrary to popular belief, any kitchen (unlike the ones which they show in cookery show or in the movies), it is not a very comfortable place to stay for long. Industrial kitchens are worse with high temperatures, flames, small space in between the stations, making it tough to move around.

Pista House, is the baap of Industrial kitchen. One cannot expect the exact hygiene norms to be followed as one would expect in a 5 star kitchen but that’s what perhaps prompted me to click these pics.

The Haleem Making process in Pista House Hyderabad

A little about the process – Most of the workers (200 in numbers) would come to work around 3/ 3.30 in the morning and end their day around 5. They also have their Ramazan and they maintain the fast. It gets tough to cook food when you are fasting. Yet, on a daily basis, they churn 2000 to 4000 kg of haleem.

The smoke coming out of the drums of haleem kept on oven, the colourful storage container or the yellow cap with Pista House branding were all worth capturing and documenting through the camera.

Inside Pista house and the images

Leaving you with some of the best images from the visit. Let me know your opinion about it? As I release this post its Eid today, and this is a humble tribute to those 200 silent workers in Pista House, some of whom I have met and also to innumerable unknown faces who work relentlessly in this month, fasting making Haleem for the fast breaking of others or for sheer eating pleasure of others.

Let me know your opinion about the pictures

What attracts you most when you enter the Pista House factory is the coloured drums all around and as a photographer you cannot stop clicking them

I loved the red drums against the red wall and then the green vegetables in front of them

Just like any process its not only the front enders but you have the back end works also going on. Like here they were pounding the masalas

Blue, red and green. Like the dabbawallahs in Mumbai I am unaware if these are colour coded. I also wondered which all places the content of these dabbas will travel.

There are lots of backend works and since we entered towards the end, the cleaning was also going on.

The smoke. The aroma. The testing from time to time.

He works for more than 13 hours and perfects every batch of haleem he produces.

The fire starts early morning and unless one stands near the fire cannot realise at what temperature the work happens.

I wondered how can they hold their smile inspite of so much of hard work.

Its hard labour with loads of concentration. This man nails it.

There is rhythm in which they carry the empty drums and also the filled drums with haleem.

The important phone call cant be missed although the work must go on.

Like all group activity which also makes a sound, if you make the place noise free, there is a rhythm in which the pounding happens. Right nodes and internodes.