The man second in from right is wearing his lungi folded in half to keep it mostly out of the water. I know this is a lungi because that is a typical plaid and three color pattern for lungi cloth. You go to the market and buy the cloth in rectangles and then have someone sow it into a tube. That's all there is to it. I had a lungi of a very similar plaid and coloring when I was in Bangladesh. However, this is India.
Doing The Wash
Right in the middle
of folding my worn out wash,
my ragged old shorts,
I thought of your lines
and started this new poem,
you dozing nearby.
It's about a cat
with her satisfied Cheshire
grin and her supple
tail twitching about,
or it's about time passing
and about the flame
between us, warming
the whole world and this longing
we might choose to hide.
October 29, 2010 12:30 PM
Oddly enough, I do have a load of wash in, even though it is Christmas.
ReplyDeleteThat's one way to have a 'clean start' for 2015!
DeleteBest of Season's Greetings, Christopher. :-)
The possibilities are seemingly endless doing the wash. Over here, we used to call the Indian washer dhobies and place of washing by the river, dhoby gaut.
ReplyDeleteThis made Wiki: Dhoby Ghaut is a place in Singapore that often refers to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station, a major interchange station on the Mass Rapid Transit of Singapore. Dhoby Ghaut or Dhobi Ghat (Hindi: धोबी घाट) (Punjabi: ਧੋਬੀ ਘਾਟ) (Tamil: தோபி காட்) literally means washing place in Hindi, from dhobi "washerman" or one that does laundry and ghat, generically meaning a large open space. As a place, Dhoby Ghaut lies along the eastern end of Orchard Road. Above the MRT station there is a shopping mall, called Plaza Singapura.
DeleteI was pretty sure "gaut" needed an "h". I was also sure that the Hindi was going to be "dhobi ghat".
Oh yes there's a "h". Slap me. I was just over at Plaza Sing on Christmas day.
ReplyDeleteConsider yourself slapped.
Deleteouch!!
Delete