Meet the people who wash Mumbai’s dirty linen in public – literally. Come along with us this sunny Mumbai morning to the municipal Dhobi Ghats at Mahalaxmi station. 

The Dhobi Ghats are the largest open-air laundry in the world, resiliently surviving and thriving in the age of washing machines. The dhobis live in the ghat, their houses facing the large wash tanks and wooden tubs for soaking. Around 100 dhobis and their families live their lives according to the rhythm of soaking, scrubbing, pounding, starching, drying, and ironing clothes. People working in the Dhobi Ghats mostly come from Uttar Pradesh, Andra Pradesh, and Kerala.

Standing knee-deep in sudsy water, lean sinew-armed men whirl a twisted bundle of clothes up towards the sky and pound it against a 150 year old dhoolayi pathar, worn smooth by years of Mumbai’s laundry, but still intact. An arch of droplets glitters in the sun as the wet clothes crash down upon the flogging stones and young men with mischievous winks throw fragments of songs across the tubs. (The Dhobi Ghats were, by the way, used to shoot several scenes in Munna M.B.B.S., where Munna bhai and his bhailog fight and dance around and in the wash basins.) As I pass through the narrow way between the tubs, the young men’s songs grow louder and a cacophony of whistles whirrs through the colourful shirts fluttering in the breeze.

Most of the tanks and tubs are filled with dull grey water but next to a stack of dazzlingly white shirts, we stumble upon a tub filled with brilliantly blue water – neel to brighten white laundry. And around the corner a tub sparkling with glittering pink water is awaiting a load of clothes to be dyed.

The dhobis’ houses are open without doors or windows, only curtains flapping in the air. Laundry has taken over their houses – kheps of washed and pressed linen waiting for delivery stacked in all possible corners, piles of dirty clothes awaiting to be washed everywhere, and a precious batch of freshly washed sparkling shirts in pastel colours drying on the roof.

The Dhobi Ghats were specifically constructed to wash the Viceroys and Senior British Officers’ laundry. As we pass by, the dhobis proudly tell us that they wash Taj Hotel’s laundry, other illustrious clients’ shirts, and even hospitals dirty sheets which are first boiled in huge vats in a separate area.

And just as Mumbai’s famous dabba wallas, the dhobis have a complicated identification system for the clothes that are first sorted and washed according to colour, heaviness of material and degree of dirtiness and then delivered in a need pressed stack to their owners. One dhobi can wash 200 pieces of laundry in a day, which makes the dhobis’ claim that they never mix up the clothes quite impressive.

The Dhobi Ghats have become so famous that many tourists forgo a visit to the Gateway of India for a stroll amongst the washing dhobi and strings of colourful fragrant shirts blowing in the wind, their collars cleverly twisted between two pieces of string. The Dhobi Ghats are a beautiful testimonial to Mumbai’s ingenuity and efficiency.