Laundry

 

Indians in India have come a long way in terms of doing laundry.  When I left India in 1995,  hand washing clothes was still prevalent. Many homes still did not use/own a washing machine. They either used maids or did it themselves. Ours was among those homes,  although we had owned a machine in an earlier period but had given up on machine washing, unable to stand the service it provided.  Now-a-days, almost everybody owns a washing machine. The washing powders available have a come a long way too. Tide and many such better washing powders exclusively made for the washing machines are available in the market. 

Still, today I just finished hand washing a boat load of clothes. I am usually very picky about how I maintain my kids clothes. I’ve maintained all their clothes from infancy like I’ve to pass them down through generations. yeah! weird. One will be surprised how much laundry can collect in my home over a period of 3-4 days with 4 girl kids. I normally would have sorted them into lights, whites and darks and many more categories for washes but here in India I don’t have that luxury.   I just sort them as lights and darks.

Last week when I looked at my MiL’s, a front loader, it looked impressive, Why then not use the washing machine? No reason, so trustingly, I had put my kids clothes into the machine to run a rinse and spin cycle. I had already patted the soap water out from the clothes after soaking them.  When the cycle came to spin, there was loud thudding sound in the house, the whole machine wobbled up and down and started to move. My FiL told us that, it’s ok. “That’s how it behaves”.  He then held it down for some time and soon, the cycle was done. It was time to take my clothes out..What do I find? The water had not left the clothes!! In spite of all the wobbling and rumbling and the moving around,  the machine did, the water didn’t leave the clothes.  The whites didn’t look white and the bright didn’t look bright anymore. Lost on energy and patience, I had hung them to dry.

Then we came to Hyderabad to my Mom’s home. The machine was a top loader, still from what I knew of it , it did a good job in the past, so trustingly again, I had put a load of dark cloths for wash,rinse and spin.  What did I find when it was done. The darks didn’t look dark anymore. All the darks were covered in white lint. Given up again, I had hung the clothes to dry.

So today, I hand washed the clothes. For the past few days, maybe 3 days, I had not gotten to wash the clothes, so there was a huge pile waiting for me. When I sat down to wash, what do I find?  Almost a bucket of clothes are my kids under wears.  Tiny ones…but SO MANY!!!!, Leaving aside my hubby’s boxers.  Yes, washed them too and more and more.