Inside a camphor factory
What the pressing floor actually looks like: the presses, the trays and the sealing table, filmed while the line is running.
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The camphor press running, a dhoop stick being rolled, the tests we do before a batch leaves the room — filmed in our own workshop in Gorakhpur, with nothing staged and nothing borrowed.
Crystal in, sealed tablet out. A walk through the whole camphor making process, from raw material to the pack that reaches a shop counter.
What the pressing floor actually looks like: the presses, the trays and the sealing table, filmed while the line is running.
Grading, pressing, weighing and sealing, shown end to end so you can see how a tablet holds its shape.
A slower explanation of the same process in Hindi, useful if you are new to how camphor is produced.
A close look at the press itself -- the part of the workshop that decides whether a tablet burns clean or crumbles.
The difference between the two, and which one suits the room, the ritual and the time of day.
Lighting a dhoop cone so it smoulders properly instead of smothering itself in the first minute.
Why the stick is lit and then waved out, how far it should stand from the idol, and how to store what is left.
Dried flowers from the thali turned into cones you can light the following week -- nothing from the puja is wasted.
Close to three million lamps lit across the ghats for Diwali -- the scale of the festival the camphor is made for.
The thali at the end of it all: how the plate is arranged before the lamp is lit.
Simple arrangements for the festival days, using what is already in the puja cupboard.
One thali put together from an empty plate, at the pace it actually happens on the evening.
