Dhobi Ghat washermen complain of filth, ask BMC to clean up area so that guided tours could be arranged for foreigners.
Dhobi Ghat washermen complain of filth, ask BMC to clean up area so that guided tours could be arranged for foreigners.
Freya Thamman, an American tourist, stood on Mahalaxmi Bridge on Friday and pointed her camera at Dhobi Ghat, the famous stretch of vats where laundry from across the city is washed.
She said, "It's culturally interesting," to see so much area "devoted to... laundry".
Had Thamman come in the morning, she would see an only-in-Mumbai kind of spectacle: rows of men, backs bent, standing in calf-deep muddy water, giving clothes corporal punishment for being dirty by slapping them against stone slabs. Had Thamman gone inside Dhobi Ghat, she would see another Mumbai kind of spectacle: the filth.
In this place where the water is always dirty with a million washes, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has not cleaned the drainage line and the water flows sluggishly. Members of the local washermen's association say the drain sometimes clogs up and water invades their homes.
"We clean the city's stains, but ours remain uncleaned," said one of them.
Shumit Waikar, who runs a laundry service from Dhobi Ghat, said the municipal cleaners sometimes did not turn up for work for a long time. "BMC workers do not turn up for 25 days at a time," he said.
There appears to be no study on the number of clothes washed at the seven-acre Dhobi Ghat. Waikar, however, said that his men washed at least 1,000 clothes daily on one 'stone'. A stone is a large rock on which clothes are beaten. It is placed in a vat connected with the drainage line. The vat is filled with soapy water. Dhobi Ghat has about 750 stones, which works out to 7.5 lakh clothes daily. That's a lot of muddy water.
After a visit to Dhobi Ghat on Friday, municipal health committee chairman Mangal Mange said he had written to municipal commissioner Johny Joseph demanding cleaning of the drainage line and the general area, so that guided tours of the Dhobi Ghat could be arranged for foreign tourists. "It will be (a source of) income for BMC," he said.
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