A towelling cloth

Sofina: This is a ‘gamcha’, this is very commonly used back home, you can use it as a towel or women use it to dry their hair...

Abdul Noor: Ladies can use it and men can use it and children. When we were young, we used to have a bath in a pond. You would take your clothes off and wear one of these and then you can swim and then dry it off. This gamcha was very cheap – probably less than 50 pence!

Another thing we used to see when I was young, in dairy farms they used to have these hanging up to make cheese. The liquid would come through and the cheese was left behind. This is really, really useful. Women also use it to dry their hair. They are still in used in our country.

Sunder: This one is not that good quality though, it is quite thin. If you wash it, it's going to get thinner

Sofina: I’ve got a very interesting piece here. I know this very well. It is something which is very commonly used in Bangladesh, India and other Asian countries. In my country it is called a ‘gamcha’, and it is the quickest and easiest form of towelling cloth. Women back home, they have very long hair and after they come out of the bath they tie their hair up and wrap it around and this will absorb the water. Men also use it in the fields to wipe away their sweat.

David: Is it cotton material?

Sofina: Yes, that is why it dries very quickly. Children can use it, they would wrap it around them and then go for a swim. So it is a very common piece of cloth that is used in Bangladesh. Men, women, older people. Everybody uses it.

Tasneem: When I arrived in London for the first time in 1975, I can remember, I bought one ‘gamcha’ with me because I had long hair –  very curly and thick hair – and I couldn’t use the towels here because they are so bulky. I couldn’t wrap the around my head.

David: So it absorbs water very easily?

Habib: I don’t think that it does absorb water that much, but what you can do is squeeze it out.

Sofina: It is quick drying as well. Because it is very fine you just put it out in the sun and it literally dries within minutes, and you can reuse it again and again. People use it all the time.

David: It’s like a big handkerchief!

Abdul Noor, Sofina and Sunder, Bengali Men's Group
David, National Coalition for Black Volunteering
Tasneem, Coram