Washing clothes, a part of routine, is considered here as a very important/special day, an event almost. Dates are cancelled, meetings re-scheduled and even travel plans have to adhere to the dreaded "Laundry schedule"!
Laundry back home in India was never a major issue partly because the daily maid took care of it and we had a fresh set of clothes as and when needed. The case here is quite the opposite. With the residences I am living in-Kelvinhaugh Street, there are about 300 residents with only 8 washers and the same number of dryer's to take care of the laundry load. This means that the laundry, which is done only once a week (mostly due to time constraints through the week) takes the whole day from getting clothes to the place and bringing them back to the room!
Let me describe to you a typical laundry day. You get up earlier than usual (never get up that early to study!!), pack the dirty laundry into whatever bag you can find and run down to the laundry room realising halfway that you've forgotten the detergent. Finally when you get to the machines, you find all but one of them running at full load. Rushing towards the empty one, you hear the guy behind you uttering the only words you don't want to hear that morning-"Don't think that one is workin". You curse the machine and wait, wait for one of them to finish cleaning some lucky bastards soiled garments. It boils down to the waiting game up to that point, the point I like to refer to the clash of cultures. You might wonder what cultures have got to do with laundry, well, trust me, its got to do quite a lot! It inevitably turns out that you are not the only one in queue for the sacred machine! You will have a Chinese, an American or some European breathing down your neck for the same machine, the winner of which is decided solely on cultural attributes. The American may rush through to the machine and stuff his clothes into it closely followed by the Indian/Pakistani and then the Chinese and Europeans! Anyways, finally the laundry day has to end, leaving you with a fresh pile of clothes to iron, sort and neatly stack in the cupboard which usually takes another few days! Days fly off so quickly and before you know it, the dreaded laundry day is back again!
Laundry back home in India was never a major issue partly because the daily maid took care of it and we had a fresh set of clothes as and when needed. The case here is quite the opposite. With the residences I am living in-Kelvinhaugh Street, there are about 300 residents with only 8 washers and the same number of dryer's to take care of the laundry load. This means that the laundry, which is done only once a week (mostly due to time constraints through the week) takes the whole day from getting clothes to the place and bringing them back to the room!
Let me describe to you a typical laundry day. You get up earlier than usual (never get up that early to study!!), pack the dirty laundry into whatever bag you can find and run down to the laundry room realising halfway that you've forgotten the detergent. Finally when you get to the machines, you find all but one of them running at full load. Rushing towards the empty one, you hear the guy behind you uttering the only words you don't want to hear that morning-"Don't think that one is workin". You curse the machine and wait, wait for one of them to finish cleaning some lucky bastards soiled garments. It boils down to the waiting game up to that point, the point I like to refer to the clash of cultures. You might wonder what cultures have got to do with laundry, well, trust me, its got to do quite a lot! It inevitably turns out that you are not the only one in queue for the sacred machine! You will have a Chinese, an American or some European breathing down your neck for the same machine, the winner of which is decided solely on cultural attributes. The American may rush through to the machine and stuff his clothes into it closely followed by the Indian/Pakistani and then the Chinese and Europeans! Anyways, finally the laundry day has to end, leaving you with a fresh pile of clothes to iron, sort and neatly stack in the cupboard which usually takes another few days! Days fly off so quickly and before you know it, the dreaded laundry day is back again!
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