Old ways and new

I dropped off a load of ironing at the press-wallah in our Delhi neighborhood and admired his two parrots that were hopping around on the charpai (rope bed) in front of his tent.  How do you describe this to friends in America who’ve never walked a street in India?

I imagined their response as I dodged cycle rickshaws and crossed the road through Delhi dust, heading back to our third floor flat (apartment).

“You pay a man to iron your clothes?

…Outdoors under a tent?

…With onlooking parrots?

…Using an iron filled with charcoal?

…That’s been heating in the little fire they built in 95-degree weather?

…and he charges less than 10 cents per piece?”

Yes. That’s how it is.

Every day people carry their clean laundry wrapped in cloth or hanging on hangers to the press-wallah’s tent and drop it off on the charpai. Somehow he remembers which pile belongs to whom and his daughter or son delivers freshly ironed and hung or folded clothing to various flats in the afternoon.

During our years in Delhi, our closets retained a faint smell of charcoal.

In the same neighborhood

Perhaps harder to grasp is the fact that this press-wallah operates his thriving business in the same neighborhood as a local Starbucks that serves a latte or a frappuccino for about the same amount you’d pay anywhere else in the world.

The open-air ironing tent not far from the air-conditioned coffee shop.

The old ways side by side with the new.

And our lives constantly crossing between the two.

What about you?

Are you living in a country other than your home country? Do you ever feel like you’re crossing between two worlds? What’s a special feature of your daily life that differs from your home-town experience?