An unexpected trip to Dhobi Ghat
When passing over the Ambedkar Bridge in Agra in my road to the Taj, I saw some incredible scenes along the muddy Yamuna River and I decided to return there on the way back. These were the “Dhobi” people working hard using the Yamuna’s water to wash traditional Indian garments.
Dhobis are an occupational caste grouping known to work primarily as clothes-washers. They usually work from door-to-door collecting dirty linen from households and even from hotels or other institutions. After a day or two, they return the linen washed, sometimes starched and ironed. “Dhobi” people can be seen anytime of the day washing and hanging dirty clothes along a miscellaneous more or less makeshift laundry spaces in most cases located on the banks of rivers. Those places are named “dhobi ghats”.
The sky was smoggy otherwise a very common fact here. Sadly, I missed the fresh light of the morning, but still this was one impressive sight to see. In the first moments I watched from the railroad bridge and after I venture down into the “trenches”
Visiting this large open-air laundry was for me a genuine experience. Seeing the dhobies smashing and scrubbing clothes, the large fields of carpets and sheets put to dry, the kids playing in the dirty waters, the crowds of birds, dogs and cows among the laundry rummaging in the mud, makes me think once again how different is the world that we live in.
An unexpected trip to Dhobi Ghat
When passing over the Ambedkar Bridge in Agra in my road to the Taj, I saw some incredible scenes along the muddy Yamuna River and I decided to return there on the way back. These were the “Dhobi” people working hard using the Yamuna’s water to wash traditional Indian garments.
Dhobis are an occupational caste grouping known to work primarily as clothes-washers. They usually work from door-to-door collecting dirty linen from households and even from hotels or other institutions. After a day or two, they return the linen washed, sometimes starched and ironed. “Dhobi” people can be seen anytime of the day washing and hanging dirty clothes along a miscellaneous more or less makeshift laundry spaces in most cases located on the banks of rivers. Those places are named “dhobi ghats”.
The sky was smoggy otherwise a very common fact here. Sadly, I missed the fresh light of the morning, but still this was one impressive sight to see. In the first moments I watched from the railroad bridge and after I venture down into the “trenches”
Visiting this large open-air laundry was for me a genuine experience. Seeing the dhobies smashing and scrubbing clothes, the large fields of carpets and sheets put to dry, the kids playing in the dirty waters, the crowds of birds, dogs and cows among the laundry rummaging in the mud, makes me think once again how different is the world that we live in.
