Laundry blues

The other day, driving in the vicinity of the railway station, I was transfixed by a once-familiar, now fast receding, visual image: rows and rows of laundry spread out to hang on fences, grassy patches, railway tracks and every other conceivable bit of space available. Those bales of clothes, flying wantonly in the midday sun, conjured up memories from the past…memories long forgotten, of those other days, those days that are no more. A sight at once familiar and alien….familiar because that’s a vista we’ve grown up with-endless stretches covered with whites and coloured clothes- in carefully segregated columns-a lot of times, and very inexplicably, along railway tracks (always made us speculate on the fundamental question of their being rendered cleaner or dirtier in the bargain!) and alien because we no longer encounter this sight in the city’s chic, urbane landscape. The vision reminded me of an almost disappeared species of professionals: the quintessential arbiter of the above-mentioned scene-the friendly neighbourhood dhobi who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth now!

Come Sundays and every home experienced this weekly routine of the arrival of the washer-man.-the familiar figure looming on the horizon, either on foot or on a rickety bike-depending on his economic status-a bundle of clothes on his head/carrier. No sooner had he been sighted than the housewife would scurry for her diary where she would have meticulously noted down the assortment of clothes that had been given the week before-for different purposes. There were those to be washed and ironed, some to be ironed alone (istri ke kapde) while others-typically the whites-to be dipped in indigo and starched before being ironed. Then again, there was that rough and tough variety of raiment-generally the towels, bed sheets, bed covers, thin rugs that had to be put into the bhhatti (the furnace no less!)-from which ordeal other, more delicate fabrics, had to be protected….such was the specialization involved in this careful art. The tallying of the clothes was the first step when the garments came home-done with utmost precision: shirts-4 trousers-5 saree-3 so on and so forth, till suddenly the peaceful scene would get transformed into an acrimonious one as the housewife detected a flaw in the perfect surroundings. Invariably, she would discover that the tattered rag through which she was beholding the world at large was part of the table linen she had been so proud of or the discoloured yellow dress on top of the pile was the sky-blue party frock she had bought (stretching her modest budget and incurring the spouse’s wrath in the process ) for dear daughter’s sixth birthday just a month before Sometimes, a saree would be missing or an old white shirt that had been sent for the innocuous purpose of istri cleverly substituted for a brand new one …………and all hell would break loose. The irate housewife would rave and rant, the intrepid dhobi would refuse to budge from his stance-yeh to aise hi condition mein tha/aapne saree galti se likh liya hai/ yeh to aapka hi shirt hai….depending on what the item under discussion was. But woe betide the fellow if, sometimes, his dhobun was caught red-handed, attired in the selfsame missing saree…then even he would have the grace to not show up for the next two Sundays. All in all-and the fracas notwithstanding-the fellow was indispensable and school-going kids like us when singled out as examples of wearing spotlessly clean uniforms knew who to thank for the impeccable look.

Well those days are long gone and buried-that breed has now disappeared. All we are left with are the synthetic replacement-the all too familiar iron wallah who resides in every society worth its name. These are people euphemistically called dhobis but they do not render the yeoman service that their forerunners did. All this modern version does is collect your clothes every morning and bring them back the same evening, duly ironed. No more. The luxury of a spotlessly white bed sheet, starched and ironed, or a crisp white dress-made of the finest cotton fabric-with liberal quantities of starch-shimmering-with-mica which would be the envy of every girl within hearing distance …are all things of the past. Now we dunk everything arbitrarily into the washing machine and have to make do with whatever it spews out after the pre-determined time interval. The starch and neel ceremony is almost obsolete…a luxury only a few have the time, inclination or the space for.

As I think of the dear old dhobi/dhoban, I’m also reminded of a few other tradesmen/specialized folks who’ve long since become conspicuous by their absence. For instance the khaki-clad, liveried postman-his cap tilted at a rakish angle- whose arrival always heralded joy because it meant a postcard or an inland letter (more outdated concepts) or even a greeting card from a dear one…… or the bearded fellow in a chequered lungi, his meshed wicker-basket precariously perched on his bike carrying a brood of hens-the murghi-seller- as he made his door-to-door rounds of families given to non-vegetarian delights. But what delighted and interested children the most was the arrival of the local egg-seller (yes, eggs actually came to your doorstep!) carrying fresh desi eggs, straight from their home-grown poultry outfit, with a flavour that was indescribably yummy. No subsequent farm eggs could ever match that taste. Children would scamper to the kitchen and come to the veranda carrying a pan of water. Then would follow a time-tested ritual, the litmus test to gauge the freshness of eggs: the water test. If the egg sank to the bottom of the pan, it was good to go; all the ones that floated to the surface had to be replaced. This was a fascinating exercise and in many homes, kids took turns to be allowed the privilege. The delicate constitution of eggs precluded the very young, much to their chagrin, and they had to bide their time.

Well, those days are definitely part of the long-forgotten past, but at times one does muse over that era and wonder: how much lost and how much gained?