Largest outdoor laundry mat

Today’s Geo Quiz is for all of you who take your laundry to a laundry mat. We are looking for a place where you will find the largest outdoor laundry mat in the world. And we are not talking about some facility where washing machines and dryers are lined up in one big room and you must feed the machine. We are talking about wading through rows and rows of open-air concrete basins with water knee-deep to wash those dresses,shirts, sheets and saris. That’s a clue right there.

So which place are we talking about?

The answer to today’s Geo Quiz is Mumbai, India. Mumbai is the home of the Indian Stock Exchange and the country’s movie industry – Bollywood. But despite all the glitz and glamor, in this fast-paced city, many residents still rely on something a bit slower and less high-tech to keep themselves looking good and in clean clothes. Elliot Hannon explains.

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By Elliot Hannon
In the heart of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, Ganga Ram wades into a concrete trough filled knee deep with water. He plunges a white dress shirt into the blue-ish grey pool before lifting it over his head and whipping it clean and dry on a concrete slab.

It’s a grueling way to do laundry. But here at the Dhobi Ghats, at what’s considered the world’s largest outdoor laundry mat, Ram and some 10,000 other workers hand wash half a million sheets, shirts and saris every day.

The Dhobi Ghats is a throw back in this city that’s home to India’s stock exchange. The 23-acre plot has more than 700 concrete tubs and was built by the British a century ago. Wedged between a railroad and a busy overpass, hundreds of clotheslines droop with damp clothes.

Dirty laundry is delivered to the Dhobi Ghats from hotels, homes and hospitals every day. Even though more and more people can now afford washing machines of their own, Ganga Ram said the technology doesn’t compare.

“My hand washing gets clothes cleaner than a washing machine,” he said, “because I get all of the dirt that a machine misses.”

But a washing machine is quick and convenient. So to keep pace, Ram’s workday starts at 4 am.

He washes a thousand garments each day. For each shirt he earns 7 rupees, or about 15 cents. Ram picks up and delivers the clothes himself.

To keep things straight he writes the address in the collar or on a tag. Once whites and colors are separated, Ram begins drowning and slapping each shirt. He scrubs stains with a small brush. He puts the clothes through a spin cycle in a small electric dryer and then hangs them out to dry.

Finally, the clothes are pressed with wood irons and packed for delivery. Ram’s day ends at 10 p.m.

For Ram, as with many of the others here, the Dhobi Ghats is a family tradition. Entire families live here and pitch in.

The 50-year-old Ram lives in a small concrete room that is just feet from the tub he rents for $45 a month. His father washed clothes here, just as he has for the past thirty years.

But Ram said his two sons live 400 miles away in Hyderabad, where one is a college professor and the other is studying to be an electrical engineer. So Ram will be the last of his family at the Dhobi Ghats.