Lines of Control

twenty years ago, i found myself in new delhi, making a documentary for the BBC about British arms exports. Days were spent at an arms fair in a sweaty expo’ centre, or driving around town in those old yellow and black Ambassador taxis, en route to interview defence experts and army types. This was a period of heightened tension along the so-called “line of control” — a worrying euphemism indeed, since India was thought to’ve deployed no fewer than a million soldiers along its border with Pakistan, as the two nuclear powers rattled their missiles in their silos.

One afternoon, our brilliant local fixer secured an interview with the then minister of defence, George Fernandes, and we went to see him in one of the hypertrophied government buildings

designed for the new Indian capital by Edwin Lutyens in the 1920s. Walking through galleries hung with large swags of cloth that wavered in the soupy zephyrs, and ascending baronial staircases, we eventually reached the suite of ministerial offices. But here we were checked temporarily, by a huge Sikh major-domo with upswept moustaches who disappeared inside for a while, then returned with the news that we’d have to wait while the minister finished doing his ironing.

When eventually we were ushered in, we discovered that this was indeed the case: an ironing board was set up in front of the ministerial desk, while beautifully pressed and very white shirts and loose cotton trousers occupied hangers dangling from a line stretched from side-to-side of the large and luxuriantly decorated room. We discussed ironing for a while: Fernandes told me he’d long since been accustomed to doing his own, finding it a task at once calming and satisfying. It also made him, as a socialist, feel connected to the people; for what, in this most stratified of societies, could be more militantly egalitarian than to perform those tasks reserved for women and Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”)?

I would’ve happily discussed ironing more with Fernandes — ironing, and laundering in general — but there was this tedious business of an imminent war, and Britain’s role in supplying arms to both combatants. India is quite possibly one of the greatest laundering nations on Earth, and as a traveller in its turbulent and teeming northern towns and cities, there’s nothing more calming than discarding your dirty duds at the end of the day, safe in the knowledge that they will return to you the following morning, immaculately cleaned, savagely starched (you might get a paper-cut off a crease), and ironed with seeming fanatical attention to the detailing of pleats, eyeholes and collars.

When I traversed the subcontinent as a young man, I was charmed by the way my sad little articles of denim clothing were treated with such reverence — and charmed yet more, when, if I strolled along the riverbank in the early morning, I would see groups of laundering women, their saris hoiked up around their thighs, standing in the shallows and working up an impressive froth as they lathered then beat the clothes on flat rocks. Yes, yes — I know I should decry the awful conditions that mean labour is sufficiently cheap for a tourist’s snot rag to receive the same reverent treatment as a maharani’s mantle, but such crispness! Such cleanliness! Where some see Indian civilisation resting on a foundation of filth and squalor, I see neatly piled and freshly-scented underclothes.

The only western laundries that are anywhere near as efficient are commercial outlets in large American cities, often run by ChineseAmerican families who’ve been in the business for over a century. But there’s no real pleasure — let alone romance — to be gained from sending a pair of holey socks off in a plastic bag with the bellboy, only to have them return 16 hours later having been through a mechanised wringer, a sewing machine, and with $8.50 to pay. No, it’s better to take the Fernandes way and do your own laundry.

I’ve loved doing laundry since my late teens, which is when I discovered that you actually could stop your clothes from stinking and being covered in stains without your mother’s assistance. The un-bunching of socks, the careful winkling-out of wadded tissues from trouser pockets, the scrutinising of labels to ascertain appropriate water temperatures — these actions always make me feel like a forensics expert, called in to investigate the atrocity that’s family life. (I say “family life” because mostly I’ve laundered for family groups; solo laundering, of course, has its own particular pleasures; namely, hand-washing, hand-wringing and improvised hanging.)

The correct detergents and softeners, the deployment of stain removers; these are all secondary, I think, to the thrill experienced each and every time the drum groans, the pump thumps, and the water gurgles in, because as the washing machine accelerates you know it’s powering you and your loved ones away from your fallen, animal condition, shit-smeared and sweat-stained, up towards a fluffy, cloudy heaven of pristine whiteness. The shaking out of the clothes and their careful arraying on a taut line takes you yet further in this direction. (And please note: T-shirts should be hung with the line under the arms to avoid the material bunching and creasing as they dry; while wooden rather than plastic pegs are de rigueur.)

However, let me stress what the late Fernandes understood only too well: the true line(s) of control are those given to your newly laundered shirts by the application of a hot steam iron, and no man, in my opinion, can really call himself a man until he has perfected the craft — and the art — of ironing a shirt. I would go further: for me, that feeling one has, facing a challenging meeting or a potentially erotic encounter, of unshakeable self-confidence, can only be achieved if one is sporting a spotless and wrinkle-free white shirt that has been made this way by dint of one’s own skill and diligence.

I have lived a life — I’ve written books and articles, given speeches, travelled the world and made love to women of rare beauty and distinction — but no achievement, for me, has been greater or more significant than learning how to iron a shirt sleeve properly.

○