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We had our laundry done twice a week by the dhobi but that was inadequate so we did our own in between times; in the bone dry air a pair of slacks could be worn 15 minutes after washing.
Some municipalities, where there is an adequate water-supply at their disposal, have made artificial arrangements of this nature, with water running from taps into small tanks where the dhobis stand and wash. But they much prefer the river. Many of the Indian rivers for a large part of the year provide just the conditions which the dhobi loves.
The explanation is probably that the shallow pool in which the dhobi works and grunts is well adapted to the feeding habits of the forktail.
"And the dhobi, after profuse expressions of gratitude, hobbled from my presence. "Alone with my thoughts, I felt sorely troubled. The writer of the verses of ardent poetry written on the paper brought to me by the washerman was my cherished friend, a youth from far-away Bokhara, Abdul by name.
But it must be confessed that this desirable result is attained at much cost to the garments themselves. The profession of washerman, or dhobi as he is called, like most other occupations in India, is chiefly an hereditary one. It is very difficult for anyone outside the dhobi caste to get a footing in the profession.
"'As you have said, O my protector, began the dhobi, assuming a sitting posture and spreading the folds of his loose-flowing cotton garment over his bandaged feet, 'I am an honest man. And it is for that very reason I have suffered.
Relaxations of the dhobi; his difficulties in the rains; his standard of honesty; he learns his trade in childhood; his bullock. Bells on cattle, useful at night; melody of the bells. An obstinate bullock a perplexity. Motor-cars and bullocks. India is a country in which the washing of clothes is carried out to perfection, so far as the cleansing and bleaching of the garments is concerned.
When at last the face was raised I recognized the dhobi of the village that nestled under the hill on which was perched the castle of the zemindar. "'O thou washer of clothes, I asked, 'what is thy plaint? "'Protector of the poor, replied my visitor, 'behold my bandaged feet, beaten with rods until they are swollen and torn.
From a merely utilitarian point of view there are some advantages in the fact that certain trades are practically confined to the members of certain castes. A dhobi, for instance, does not expect or aspire to be anything different. Hence he begins to learn his craft almost from infancy. Again, as I write, I can see in the stream below a busy family of three generations of dhobis.
Silly ignorant Goslings in the middle saying to Brahmins, 'And you are Muscleman, aren't you, or are you a Dhobi? and to Parsis, 'I suppose you High Caste gentlemen have to bathe every day? shoving their awful ignorance under the noses of everybody, and inquiring after the healths of the 'chief wives'. Silly fatuous geese! and then talking the wildest piffle about the 'burning question of the hour' and making the seditious rotters groan at their ineptitude and folly, until they cheer them up sudden-like with a bit of dam' treason and sedition they ought to be jailed for.
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