This is not a happy place - Dhoby Khana in Fort Kochi

It's difficult to enjoy an exciting outing when it's +95 degrees and so humid that dripping sweat with a slight breeze supplied from C lips doesn't help.  Not even Rahim's whispers of "harijan are a very low caste, very low" at the Dhoby Khana's Vannar Sangham  perks my interest.  That is until I enter the actual wash house. Long stalls of individual cemented washbasins are handled by men and women standing on 6 inch platforms bent over and scrubbing uniforms, thwacking sheets, or ironing shirts using 16 pound old fashioned irons with live coconut shells burning inside so as to keep the iron hot and the shorts, sheets and uniforms crisp.  

These are the Harijans who launder by hand for todays hotels, restaurants, the navy and local households.  The harijan caste were subjugated to do laundry in the 1500's when the Portuguese military, who were now the ruling class took over in southern Kerala, India.  Six hundred years later, harijan families are still doing laundry by hand.  Yes, there are schools so many of the newly educated will have more opportunities.  But there are still thousands of harijans forced into this industry.  Rahim says, "look around.  mostly old."  This is not a happy place. It is still slave labor for there are no other options "for they are harijans."  So I wonder if the next educated generation will purchase washing machines, dry cleaning business, be accountants for the business, or will they go another route.