Dhobi Ghat: The dirty picture

HYDERABAD: The toxic Musi river water has been under scanner for many years now, but it is this which provides livelihood to thousands of families working at the Dhobi Ghat situated along the river. Scores of families have been working here for generations, bringing to life dull and dirty clothes. Though the sheets drying on the ghats may still look bright and fresh, a closer look reveals its grimier side.
A borewell surrounded by dirt and a line of cemented enclosures reeking of the stench of bleach welcome one at these ghats, each of which accommodates 60 to 80 washermen. The water from the borewell is dark green in colour, and as thickly polluted as the river water. But without even giving it a glance, the washermen collect it and go about their chores. “If I don’t tell my customers where I wash the clothes, they do not seem to have any problem,” laughs J Mallesh. Hailing from Siddipet, he stays with his family in the slum nearby. The day’s work starts at 5 am for him and his wife. “We used to start work later, but now we need to fetch water manually from the borewell to our cement tubs. The electric bill for the borewell has gone way too high and not everyone is ready to pay. So we no longer use the pump,” he says.
While Mallesh’s family, like many others who share the workplace, mainly cater to smaller customers, K Venkatesh, who works on the other side of the Musi behind the RTC bus stand, caters to hotels and hospitals alone. A number of private clinics and small hospitals send their clothes to be washed here. His clothesline is lined with white and green sheets, most of which come from private clinics across the city. But he gets orders through subcontracting from laundries in the city so he is not sure to which hospital they belong. Only a kidney specialty clinic at Himayatnagar has given him a direct contract. His work starts with separating the bloodstained clothes from the others and then he washes them separately. “After a thorough wash with half a kg of bleach and caustic soda, the stains are all gone,” he boasts not realizing that the exercise could end up adding more deadly germs to the sheets.
An activist from the area, on the condition of anonymity, added that with the system of subcontracting and involvement of local politicians it is difficult to trace the hospitals from which the clothes are sent. “But it is not just here. Old Patigadda dhobi ghat on the Hussainsagar even caters to government hospitals,” he alleges.
The dhobi ghat at the Hussainsagar is much less organized than that at the Musi. The dark water is used for washing clothes which include white bedsheets and dark green sheets, clearly from hospitals or clinics. N Raju, who has been washing clothes in the area for more than five years, informs that his clientele includes hospitals, hotels and tent houses. However, he did not know which clinics or hospitals he caters to. While he mentions some names of hotels from Park Lane, he says that the hospital clothes reach him through a middleman. “There is a seth who supplies clothes to us in bulk thrice a week. He sends the clothes in a tempo or an auto. We get paid Rs 3-4 per piece which is lower than our usual rate.” However, he or any of his fellow washermen refused to divulge the names or details of their seth.
Says Md Ashfaq of People’s Initiative Network, area lead of Moosanagar, “It is no point blaming the washermen because they are illiterate and do not realize the importance of these things. The government should be more careful in ensuring the proper upkeep and maintenance of the dhobi ghats. The cement tub system was introduced for this reason alone. But with half the borewells not in working condition, the purpose is lost.” He also says that it is the hospitals which should be held responsible for sending clothes here in the first place.
And for the record, the Musi water being used to sanitise hospital laundry contains untreated industrial wastes and sewage apart from suspended solids, plastics, metals, alkalines, acids, along with chemical effluents like, chromium hexane from tanneries, cyanide and cadmium from goldsmiths, silver bromide from photo studios, oil and grease from automobiles, lead from batteries, organic waste, etc!