- Everyone Has Dreams
This is called a dhobi ghat. It’s a modern day laundry but one that probably looked the same during the Raj. This one is Bombay or, nowadays, Mumbai. It’s a maze of cement cubicles open to the hot Indian sun. Each cubicle contains a large basin of water with walls high enough to slap the wet clothes against. Water arcs overhead in large droplets as the men beat the clothes and soon the men are as wet as the clothes they are washing.
Along the side are covered ‘rooms’ where men like this one scrub collars and cuffs with a small brush. The good thing is that while you scrub your mind is free to dream. Let’s hope his dreams come true.
Laundry day was Monday when I was growing up on the farm. My mother would begin immediately after breakfast. We had a washing machine with a wringer. Women felt fortunate to have this labor saving device. It was a barrel shaped machine on legs with rollers. You could roll it near the sink to fill it with water using the hose that was attached to the machine. My mother would have the clothes piled according to colors. Believe me there were a lot of clothes and towels and sheets. The last thing she washed, it was all done in the same water, were the ‘dungarees’. We call them jeans today.
As she finished each batch she would go into the yard to hang them out. In winter, even in South Carolina, it would sometimes be so cold that they would freeze on the line.
Did my mother have time to dream like this young man? Maybe. I can almost see her smoking a Camel cigarette as she leans against the large stone sink.