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| Kida and I toured this slum yesterday and were amazed by the quantity of friendly smiles that greeted us (maybe it was her cast). Dhobi Ghat is one of the largest open air laundry areas in Mumbai. Men migrate here to wash clothes and send their earnings home to their families in the countryside. Five to ten men will share 8 x 10 concrete rooms that have a wooden sleeping platform over their common cooking area. |
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| This method of flailing the clothes over stones is slowly being replaced by machines that can work 10x as quickly as the men. A washerman toured us through the compound and the $6 entry fee he collected from us went to a communal pool to upgrade their equipment and care for their people. |
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| A large portion of Dhobi Ghats clients are fashion houses which prewash their clothing. Clothes pegs are not used to hang the pants. They are simply slipped between two twisted ropes. |
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| Saris and dresses are recycled by boiling in the 55 gal wood fired drums below, washing and then reselling for a fraction of their original price. |
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| Clean laundry is redistributed via large hand pulled carts to the manufacturers and by bicycle to individual households. |
