The clothesline conundrum!

You take your parents around the flat you are about to purchase. It does not matter how many rooms your home has or the view from the balcony. Their concern is of a practical nature- where will you have a clothesline? The triviality of the question hits you. But, it is a fundamental point that has eluded us since the dawn of urbanization. 

Your flat in the city is modest. You do not own an entire terrace to dry clothes in the open. The traditional clothesline was confined to the balcony ceiling. It took enormous skill to spread clothes over the line. The garment had to be heaved up to the ceiling with a stick. And once over the line, you eased out the crumple in the cloth. Tiny items like socks toyed with your patience. They just wouldn’t rest on the line- like a pole-vaulter, they went up only to be back on the floor! And in your effort to set one garment right, you disturbed another that came smack in your face! On windy days, it was an exercise in futility- either the clothes took a stroll outside the balcony or lay scattered on the ground. At the end of the day, you knew what the phrase “pain in the neck” meant. 

These days, the clothesline is modernized with a rope and pulley mechanism. You lower the clothesline to eye-level, spread out your clothes and hoist it up to the ceiling! As with any mechanized device, it is “lyrical in its ideal essence”. But reality is far from ideal. There are days the contraption throws tantrums like your two year old! You hoist it up, and find the rope has got entwined and the entire apparatus goes up at an angle. You try to troubleshoot only to complicate it more. Soon, patience runs out. You give one fatal tug with all your might. The next thing you know- you blink your eyes buried under a tent of wet clothes! You have successfully managed to snap the entire clothesline! 

Parents volunteer to spend 6 months with their children in the US. Their greatest culture shock is the absence of a clothesline! You may own a mansion in the US, still, drying clothes in the open is considered an eye-sore and against community rules! Parents are aghast that unwashed clothes are piled up in a heap and the washing machine and dryer runs once in 3 days! They grit their teeth through the 6 months and return to India with much relief. How much they took for granted- that unbridled freedom to dry clothes in the open! 

Eventually, all problems will be solved, including world hunger. But mankind will continue to wrestle with the clothesline conundrum!