It will be seen that laundry work done in Indian fashion is very laborious; but the dhobis are a cheerful race, and many of them make a good deal of money. Their chief relaxation seems to be an occasional social evening, which extends till the next morning. Liquor flows freely on these occasions, and as the evening progresses the uproar increases, and before the party finally breaks up a war of many words generally ends in some, or all of the guests, having a free fight, which, however, is generally without bloodshed and does not apparently hinder the resumption of friendly relationships the next day.
The dhobi's time of trial is the rainy season, when he pursues his trade under great difficulties. The modest stream of clear water, so well suited to his purpose, has developed into a rolling river of muddy water. His smooth stones, his gravelly shoals, the banks of green grass, are now buried deep in a foaming torrent. The air is laden with moisture, and violent rain falls repeatedly. He lives in a miserable hut, with none of the appliances which we are accustomed to see in laundries. His artificial means for drying clothes are of the most primitive character, and his customers are clamouring for their garments, and abusing him because he is behindhand.
In a country where integrity in matters of trade is rare, it is not to be expected that the dhobi's standard of honesty will be higher than that of other people, and the nature of his employment gives facilities for petty dishonesty: such as exchanging old handkerchiefs for new, or not bringing back the same number of garments as he took away. But even when his intentions are good, it makes it the more difficult to return the washing correctly that the English markings on the clothes are to him only so many cabalistic signs, merely to be recognised by their general appearance. And as the dhobi often finds himself misled in his attempt to follow this uncertain guide, he adopts signs of his own for his regular customers, and with coloured thread, or even ink, makes marks on the clothes intelligible to himself, and not always conducive to the appearance of the garment.
From a merely utilitarian point of view there are some advantages in the fact that certain trades are practically confined to the members of certain castes. A dhobi, for instance, does not expect or aspire to be anything different. Hence he begins to learn his craft almost from infancy. Again, as I write, I can see in the stream below a busy family of three generations of dhobis. The grandfather is grey-haired, and though taking a good share of the work is obviously getting into old age, although probably not much over fifty. But for most Indians that means old age. His son is a hale man in the prime of life. Two or three women, the wives of one or other, or of each, are assisting. But there is a little grandson about three or four years old. He still walks rather unsteadily on bowed legs. He is already absorbed in learning the mysteries of his ancestral trade. He is given a pair of stockings to wash, and, small as he is, he copies exactly the actions of his parents. He rinses the stocking in the water, beats it on the stone so far as his limited supply of strength will allow, rinses it again, beats it again, and finally casts it on one side when the process is complete, as he sees his father do. He is almost a full-fledged dhobi as soon as he has learned to talk and walk. Not being very great at the latter accomplishment, he rides home on the bullock, which is a necessary part of the stock and trade of every prosperous dhobi. The bullock carries the clothes, which are formed into a sort of huge bolster, which, when put on the back of the bullock, nearly touches the ground on either side.
Bullocks almost invariably have a bell hung round their necks. When cattle are out grazing the bell is useful, because it serves to indicate their whereabouts when they have strayed. They also follow more or less the sound of one anothers' bells, so that they tend to keep a flock or herd together. The bells on the bullocks which are employed in road traffic have a practical use, because, when travelling by night, the proximity of a bullock-cart is often first indicated in the dark by the tinkling of the bells. These are often two or three inches in diameter, and in the comparative stillness of night can be heard at some distance. When a string of a dozen or more bullock-carts follow each other in close succession the jingling of the bells rings out cheerfully. In fact, an additional reason why people like to have bells on their bullocks is that the Hindu is mostly timid at night, and the sound of the bells is a kind of companionship, and may do something towards warning off evil spirits.
When a number of bells are tinkling at the same time they are naturally not always in tune with one another, and discordant combinations may result, especially when the bells of two bullocks yoked together are much out of tune. But if you listen critically to each bell, when a row of carts is passing, you will every now and then hear one of a peculiarly rich and mellow sound. I once tried to persuade a man to sell a melodious bell which I heard by chance as he drove by, but he would not entertain the idea for a moment. Perhaps he thought that it would be unlucky to part with it.
That the bullocks themselves get to look upon the bell as a necessary accompaniment to work, has been often noticed. An Englishman travelling by night in a bullock-cart found that the ceaseless jingling of the bells kept him awake, and he ordered them to be removed. But when the sound ceased the beasts took it as an indication that work was over, and promptly lay down, and no further progress was made till the bells had been restored. An Indian bullock is for the most part a docile and long-suffering creature. But he makes up for his usual good behaviour when he happens to get annoyed. He is not unlike his Indian master in this respect. If a bullock lies down and refuses to do his work, no amount of persuasion will induce him to change his mind. Natives even go so far as to light straw under him when all other efforts to make him budge fail. More often, when blows and energetic tail-twistings have no effect on him, the beast has to be humoured in some way. His mind is often restored to its normal equilibrium by inducing him to change places with his yoke-fellow, or with a bullock in another cart.
The eventualities of road traffic do not usually disturb the placidity of the bullock, but if he once gets frightened and loses his head, he gives way to unmitigated panic. The first appearance of the motor-car, which is now almost as common in parts of India as it is in England, reduced many bullocks to a state of abject terror. Fortunately most mishaps with bullock-carts are not very serious in their results. The cart is not easily broken, and is quickly righted. But having occasion to travel in a public motor-car through a country district where the car was then a novelty, it was alarming to see the state of chaos which we were constantly leaving in our rear. The theory of the driver of the car was that, if bullocks are frightened, the best course is to dash past quickly and get it over. The result was not altogether a success. The fact that a horrible monster had sped by was sufficient to produce panic, and the first impulse of the bullock was to rush off the road to some place of safety. In India it is easy to go off the track at any point, because there is often neither wall nor hedge, and the surrounding country may be uneven and intersected with beds of streams and deep hollows.
In the course of our journey I saw a bullock-cart swerve off the road and fall bottom upwards into a field on a much lower level. Anyone unfamiliar with bullock-cart accidents would expect much more disastrous results from such a mishap than was probably actually the case; but I saw the tragedy when we were already far ahead, and our driver of course never saw it at all. Consternation was excited in the traffic ahead of us by the hoot of the car. Drivers, who had already experienced the effect of a motor-car on their beasts, leapt from their cart, and hastily urging the bullocks to the side of the road, stood in front of them and blind-folded their eyes with their garments so that they might not see the apparition tearing by. After a little familiarity with motors, the philosophic Indian bullock soon gets to regard them with supreme indifference.