This is India: A Picnic

My in-laws invited us to a picnic recently. I asked them where it would be. “Brickyard. On the other-side of the City.” My assumption was that we were going to an old brickyard that had been converted to a park. This sounded interesting and, after 5 weeks in the US, I was looking forward to eating large amounts of Indian food and being with the family.

We drove almost an hour and half through uncommonly harsh Sunday traffic into an almost rural / village area. We were soon at a working brickyard. Suddenly it dawned on me that this was not a park at all. Apparently someone my in-laws know owns a brickyard and invited us over for a picnic. To say the area was dusty would be a mild understatement. Definitely the wrong day to wear new pants and a white shirt.

On the bright side we were going to get a tour of a brickyard and see how they are made by hand. Which was worth the dirt filled boogers I had that night. The process is low tech in the extreme. A shallow valley is allowed to flood, and the silt it carries settles. This silt is mixed with soil, then put in wood brick molds, and these are laid out to dry in the sun. A surprise rain in this process could ruin a whole batch of bricks. These dried bricks are then fired in a slow and meticulous process with a giant oval oven. There is a tall smokestack that must be over 100′ tall to avoid pollution problems – though I can tell you that the air was nice and polluted. The fired bricks are checked for quality and sorted, then sent to the construction site. We were there on a Sunday, so most people were not working, but some parts of the process – the firing – can not be stopped for a day. These guys get to stand by burning fire pits, which probably feels nice in our current temperatures.

All the while, the picnic carried on. Snacks were served, juice was poured (someone even handed me a cold beer!), and we even played some version of “hot potato” with a dusty pillow. The loser having to sing a song. Thankfully I managed to avoid this embarrassment. Hands down the most unique picnic I’ve ever been to.

PICNIC SLIDESHOW