Freedom to Dry

A few days ago, residents of Garden Estate, Gurgaon, were sent notes telling them to kindly use a dryer for their clothes as hanging them out made the colony look like a ‘dhobi ghat’.

A few days ago, residents of Garden Estate, Gurgaon, were sent notes telling them to kindly use a dryer for their clothes as hanging them out made the colony look like a ‘dhobi ghat’. Such a ban is unusual, but what is more peculiar is the movement against it. Currently, a conflict is raging in the US for the right to dry. Filmmaker Steven Lake has made a documentary, Drying For Freedom, in which he follows laundry activists campaigning to keep the tradition of hanging clothes out on a clothesline alive. “In the US, the trend of banning the clothesline came from the post World War II boom. People had money to spend and new luxurious appliances were in the market,” says Lake. “Using clotheslines made people seem poor because they could not afford the luxury of a tumble dryer.” Lake believes this is happening in India now because of its “fast development”.

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Pakhi Sen