The life and times of Mumbai’s dhobis

This is a teaser for a short video I’m working on about India’s largest outdoor laundry – Mahalaxhmi Dhobi Ghat. You can hear tour guide, Samir Malim talking about the life of the laundry mat.

I’ve been interested in Dhobi Ghats since moving to India, as our apartment overlooked a small laundry in Bandra. At 5.30 every morning we would wake to the surprisingly loud sound of wet cloth being smacked on concrete. Outside a single, straggly Indian would be pounding away, knee deep in suddy water.

Dhobis are some of the hardest working people in Mumbai. They slap, pound and scrub from before sunrise to after people cook their evening meals of curry and chapatis.

The dhobis represent an old world – before washing machines and tumble dryers – where every muscle is put to hard labour.

Full video coming soon . . .

A glimpse into Dharavi slum

One of Asia’s biggest slums in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai is becoming a tourist destination. Though tour operators say they help dispel myths about slum life, some residents see them as exploitative.

View this document on Scribd

Thousands of people move each month from villages and small towns to India’s financial and film capital in search of the great Mumbai dream. But grinding poverty and a lack of affordable housing in the western Indian city has led to sprawling shanty towns.

One of the largest is Dharavi, home to an estimated one million people and better known as the setting for the Academy Award-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Now, British-run Reality Tours has begun offering tourists a tour through Dharavi’s teeming lanes.

Published at Deutsche Welle Online, Germany’s international broadcaster.

Story by Michael Atkin, photographs by Lauren Farrow

To read the full story and view the photographs visit

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5171492,00.html