The Beauty of Bombay: Airing Dirty Laundry

Mind-altering. My smoke-stained jeans and used-to-be-white blouse are already sticking to me in the humidity; grit gathers under my coral-coloured nails, yet I stand, looking over a bridge, at the irony of bustling Bombay. Around me, the muffled cacophony of honking, hocking and hurried footsteps form the city’s soundtrack; below me, the vibrations from Mahalaxmi train station begin to re-awaken my sub-continent senses; and in front of me -smacking me in the face with colourful reality- is the world’s biggest open-air laundry… bluntly residing in the epicentre of a slum. It foams with vibrancy and I’m perplexed. Questions: too many. But my friend-of-a-friend, displaying all the usual hospitality of an Indian host, can see my mind ticking: “This is Dhobi Ghat”. Serving the masses, the workers collect, tag and hand wash (airing all items by colour) thousands of sullied garments every day, before miraculously returning them to their rightful owners. Head-tilted, I look on in bemusement at the paint-palette, only to be knocked off balance and pulled through the throngs by my local insider.

Cocooned in a shell of safety, we traverse back along the rickety backalleys, weaving through a human labyrinth, beeping as we go. Without warning, we’re forced to an abrupt halt: there’s a cow crossing the road… again. Yet, it’s quite clear that I’m the strange attraction here and not the bell-wearing road-dweller that leisurely crosses ahead. A street-stall seller and her customers peer through the window with the same curious, smiling acceptance that I offer the cow. A barefooted child with matted hair taps and paws at the passenger window; baby in hand, she extends her right palm to raise a cup-shaped question. Rashna accelerates forward, but my mind jolts back to the resounding reality that blurs India’s kaleidoscopic beauty.

Bombay’s belly, however, has the ability to fill you with delicious anticipation; I’m hungry for more. Abandoning my host for the afternoon, my face is tickled by a thousand stares from those jumping on and off the doorless sweatboxes that clink along the city’s veins. What better way to understand the beating pulse of Bombay than to get lost on a journey amongst daily commuters. Rashna and I will reunite tonight: I ‘must’ allow her to introduce me to the bullet-holed Taj Palace Hotel that whispers the secrets of the British Raj out through the Gateway of India - where they lie beneath the bobbing fishing boats afloat the murky Arabian Sea.