Do be a dhobi, if you like to wash clothes

For Americans, washing clothes means a machine into which they put all their apparel, pour the required amount of detergent and switch on.

If you live in an apartment as I do, you also have to give the machine three quarters.

Half-an-hour later, you remove the clothes and transfer to them to the adjoining machine to dry. Your clothes are washed and ready in about an hour; it’s as simple as this.

This has been a new experience for me. That’s because for centuries in India, my country, a separate group or class of people has been performing these tasks with dedication, passing on the skill from one generation to the next.

In any Indian village – and more than 70 percent of the India’s population lives in its 550,000 villages – one easily can find this group or caste, who are known as dhobi – which in English normally is translated as washer man or launderer.

Traditionally, almost every Indian village has a few dhobi families occupying one corner of the village, engaged in washing the clothes of the entire village. And in lieu of money, as during my childhood days, villagers give them mostly grains. Things have changed now, and all is in cash.

In ponds or the river flowing through every village, one could come across dozens and scores or these dhobis washing cloths at the dhobi ghat – the “place where clothes are washed” – and then hanging them on ropes to dry.

In big cities, such as Mumbai (the economic capital and also India’s film city), Calcutta and New Delhi, these dhobi ghat are huge.

In these cities, the dhobis – who often have migrated from the villages, like other urban folks – are visible in every apartment or nook and corner of the colonies. Generally, they are found at the entrance of the staircase in every apartment building or under a tree in the colonies.

Interestingly, every dhobi has his own jurisdiction. In villages, it mostly is tied to a family, which passes it on from generation to generation. During my visit to my village, I can’t give clothes to just any dhobi of my choice. My clothes would be washed only by the one that has been doing it for my family for generations.

Here in Grand Forks, of course, I am not tied to any such obligations. I can wash clothes at any coin-operated machine. All I need are four quarters and detergent.

In cities in India today, as human services are getting a bit expensive by Indian standards, people normally wash most of their clothes on their own and give it to the dhobi downstairs or at the street corner for ironing.

Washing machines, too, have made their entry into the growing middle class. But the role of dhobis in society has not diminished much.

As such, quite a large amount of clothes are washed at the dhobi ghat, which in the city of Delhi is along the Yamuna River. There, one can see the washed clothes on the river bank, drying in the sun.

As you might expect, of late the green brigade has been alleging that this results in massive river pollution. This fact is acknowledged even by the federal pollution control agency.

Consequently, there have been repeated efforts on the part of the civic agencies to close the dhobi ghat and give the dhobis machines so that they could continue with their hereditary profession. However, the authorities have been unsuccessful so far, due to stiff opposition from the dhobi organizations.