The recent announcement by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for a new overbridge over Kollidam has brought into focus the Kollidam dhobi community .
While the new bridge would regulate the inflow of traffic into Tiruchi, it has meant eviction for the Kollidam dhobis, who have always lived by the existing bridge, built by the British about 100 years ago.
“This is not the first time that we have faced the threat of eviction,” says M.Subramaniam, one of the dhobis near Kollidam, adding that they are planning to submit a petition requesting alternative land at the upcoming grievances meet at the Collectorate. “We will ask for a place that isn’t too far away because we cannot afford to miss even a single day’s work,” he says.
True enough, the community toils to make Rs.400 per day and invests more than half that money in buying various products they use for washing, starching and ironing clothes.
“We use more than 11 different products, including bleaching powder, caustic soda, soap powder, soap oil, whiteners, colouring agents, starch and coal for the iron boxes,” says V.Selvam.
They have to buy most of these on a daily basis as the materials cannot be reused or are exhausted by the time the day’s washing is done.
“When it rains or when water is released from Mukkombu, we go out of work for 10-15 days and with that money we earn we cannot make any savings to tide over those days,” says S.Muthulakshmi. Most of them don’t even seek medical attention for the itching or when their skin peels and bleeds due to constant exposure to sand and water.
Pointing to the raw skin on her legs, she says, “People buy eye drops from pharmacies and apply it over their wounds and hope it will become alright .”
While the Kollidam washer men are from Madurai and Erode, those in Vannarapettai have been in the city for over 150 years. A more organised community, the Vannarapettai dhobis managed to get a dhobi ghat (with borewell water supply) built by the government around 20 years back. “But the ghat is in a state of disrepair now and we have no choice but to repair it ourselves,” says V.Ashok.
The community has declared the fifth of every month as a holiday so that they can clean and repair the ghat: “The slabs where we iron clothes are breaking down; the ghat does not have a compound wall, because of which drunkards trespass and often steal clothes during the nights; and when it rains, the local sewer overflows into the ghat making it uncomfortable to work,” he explains.
With hotels and private hospitals giving most of their work, the Vannarapettai dhobis claim they are unable to take even a single day off from work because customers don’t think twice before handing out clothes to someone else, says G.Vasantha.
