India Ate My Laundry

India, Summer 2010

I have been doing my own laundry for more than decade, but I have spoiled more clothing here in the past two weeks than I have in the the past 10 years.

My first problem is clothing dye. I bought a salwar kameez in an attempt to blend in and get a reprieve from jeans in the pre-monsoon season. It is burgundy and hunter green with gold beading and trim.

(Yup, that's me blending in.)

The first night I bought it, I handwashed it because I didn't know there was a washing machine on the grounds.

Pssst...washing machines are not common in India. You either handwash or take clothing to a "laundromat," which has a significantly different meaning here. A laundromat amounts to a guy who takes your clothes to the river, beats it with sticks, and returns it to you the next day, clean and ironed—the iron being literally a flat chunk of metal warmed by a fire.

I handwashed the salwar kameez while I was wearing a white t-shirt.

The next day, I noticed that my white shirt was covered in green spots from the dye tinged laundry water that splashed back on me.

Because I didn't pack a lot of clothing with me, I needed a way to save my white shirt. Had I been in the US, bleach would have been a good option. It would have been a good option in India too if I spoke Urdu.

I thought I was clever by making up a bucket of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid and dying my shirt a pinkish red. (I had packed Kool-Aid to help make the quantities of water I'd need to drink in this heat more palatable.)

I got the idea by remembering an old boss telling me about dying her hair with Kool-Aid in the pre-Manic Panic days. The pinkish was dark enough to cover up the green splash spots, albeit I did smell like a fruit salad. Pink isn't my color, but I was pleased by my efforts.

A few days later I learned that there was a washing machine, which was going to make my life a whole lot easier. I washed darks with darks and lights with lights, including my newly dyed pinkish shirt. For all of my efforts, my pinkish shirt came out white with green spots again, as the Kool-Aid did not have staying power and India dye did.

I decided to let the t-shirt go and just buy some new shirts. It seemed like an easier path than looking up how to ask for bleach in Urdu.

India: 1 ruined white shirt.

I bought two shirts and a skirt for the sum of $9. They were nothing fancy, just loud. The two tunics both had gold screen block print, which is why I was attracted to them. Gold screen print would not be something I'd wear in the US, but when in India...

I decided to wash everything before wearing, like my mother always instructed me to do.

I remembered that the dyes were strong, so I should wash darks with darks and even went the extra step of wearing darks while washing darks so no stray dye could ruin another shirt. I had no problems with the dyes this time, but my shirts came out gold-paintless

and my pants were covered in a fine gold dust.

*Rubbing my temples*

I cannot figure out why someone would go through the trouble of putting gold paint on a shirt if it washes out after one wash. So, now I am stuck with two plain tunics and glittery pants. I am hoping the glitter will wash out of the pants, as glittery pants only look good on rockstars and children under five.

India: 2 tunics without print, 1 pair of glittery pants.

This week, the iron decided to mutiny.

The (American sense of the word) iron here has two settings: cold and scorch. I tried to iron one of my new gold-less tunics to look respectable. Ironing is not something I would generally do in the US, but I try to adhere to the unwritten rules of the host country when I am aware of the rules. Neat and tidy clothes is one of them.

Apparently the tunic was synthetic as I burned a hole straight through it.

I hadn't even worn the shirt yet! I was miffed. It took me a while to scrape the burnt stringy synthetic remains off the iron with a pencil I found, but I decided to move onto something I knew was cotton: my salwar kameez.

While it is true that the salwar kameez is cotton, I learned the hard way that the trim was not, and put a hole in the trim, rendering my salwar kameez unwearable and once again I de-gunked the iron.

India: 1 goldless tunic with a hole burned through it, 1 burned salwar kameez, and 1 unironed goldless tunic because I was too afraid to try to iron it and too tired to de-gunk thrice. (It looks pretty bad as I had stashed it in a corner after the gold washed off earlier in the week).

Today, I was in a hurry, so I took a gamble and washed all of my clothing—darks and whites—together because I have washed everything at least a few times now.

Yep, you guessed it. I am now the owner of several pair of violet colored underthings.

It's too bad I hadn't put my white with green spots shirt in that load; I could have had a violet shirt. Hindsight is 20/20.

Final tally:

- 1 ruined white t-shirt with green spots;

- 1 burnt, goldless tunic;

- 1 goldless tunic, too wrinkled to wear;

- 1 burnt salwar kameez;

- 1 pair of glittery pants fit for a rockstar; and

- several pairs of violet underthings; of which, the violet bras show through my white t-shirt with green spots.

India wins.