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At work on the river ghats

Despite the advent of washing machines, dhobis - who stand in the knee-deep waters of the ghats on the Yamuna cleaning clothes - are still in demand, says R.V. SMITH

Wandering around the dhobi ghats on the Yamuna is no fun in this weather, and the washerman and his family are knee-deep in water, despite the biting cold. It's been like this for centuries, ever since society decided to have a separate class of people to keep its clothes clean.Where the river does not flow the dhobi makes use of ponds, lakes and tanks to carry on his task, and without complaining too. Many of the tribe have taken to ironing clothes in the colonies that have come up in Delhi after Partition, for people from Punjab and Sindh preferred to wash their clothes themselves, leaving the creasing to be done by the dhobi. And now, with the introduction of washing machines more and more people find it easier to do their own washing. And yet they also need the dhobi - to take care of the heavier articles, like durries and curtains.

Still there are many who depend on the washerman to cart away their clothes once a week and bring back the clean ones. It was during the Raj days that the dhobi became a bigger functionary than he was, for the heat and the dust made him indispensable to the East India Company and to its successor, the British Government. The colonial bungalows had plenty of space for the dhobis and his family to set up a hut of their own, so that they could be within hailing distance.

Gone is the Raj, and gone too is the dhobi's heyday. Nobody is willing to house his establishment now, for people by and large lack the accommodation of earlier days. Only the Defence Services are able to provide the facilities to the washerman as of old in Cantonment towns where the big bungalows survive.

Stone slabs

But back to the waterfront on the Yamuna, where the dhobi beats the clothes on the stone slabs which have become as smooth as him. One tends to muse on the days gone by, when Bahadur Shah Zafar refused to entertain a petition by the washermen, saying that his dominion did not extend to the other side of the Yamuna. A sad commentary on the decline of the Moghul empire. The washerman saw that as also the fall of the Raj, by which time he was famous enough for Aldous Huxley to make that remark about a heap waiting for the dhobi to take home and wash.

Let the winter pass and when the weather is beastly hot, come to the boat bridge on the Yamuna and be refreshed, for here the breeze gets cool when it kisses the water. The boat bridge is one of Delhi's romantic places, for it not only brings you closer to the river, but to its source. Those pebbles in the water must have been big boulders which have been ground to their present state over the years, rolling down the Himalayan heights. Touch the water, it's dirty no doubt but still it has come all the way from Yamunotri, passing through fantastic scenes of natural grandeur.

You can picture the scenario standing on the boat bridge. A shepherd of the hills looking into the water from which his herd has just had a drink. Resting on a big stick, this man must have spent many a pleasant afternoon watching the stream flowing down. Or, imagine some wild animal having a drink in the quiet of the night, when only the cricket sings its ancient song of generations that came and went away.

It was the Moghuls who started the practice of tying boats on the Yamuna, to help them sleep better on hot, stuffy nights. You can still see the staircase in the Red Fort that led to the river, where sometimes an amorous begum had fun with her lover. One thinks of all this while standing on the boat bridge, but not so during the rainy months, when the Yamuna doesn't brook such intimacy.

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