JOIN USThey moved around like commandos for a rescue or assault operation.
They came, they saw and they packed. And when they left, after the job was skillfully finished, they looked like predators making a neat meal of their prey. They were packers from a reputed agency assigned for moving the household items of my daughter who had relocated to New York.
Dressed in yellow tea shirt and black pant they reported for work on the dot – as promised earlier. And within minutes they began work like true professionals. There were no breaks either for tea or for a puff. True they halted work for lunch but it was not prolonged and were back sooner than we expected.
They had come fully equipped. Not for a moment they halted work to look for a missing or misplaced tool. They moved around like commandos for a rescue or assault operation. Packers they were and so had brought in abundant quantities of packing material like paper, cardboards, gumtape, cutters, including a sharpening stone in case the cutting blade became dull, moisture absorbers and yes, loads of professionalism. The intention was to ensure that the work proceeded uninterrupted and finished in the shortest of time.
They asked no questions, passed no comments on the need or utility of the items they were given to pack. No item was insignificant for them and each item got the packing treatment it deserved depending upon its shape or size. Even as we watched the dining chairs were first packed in singles with cardboards and paper and in the next step one chair was placed above another. The six chairs had become three luggage pieces fit for travel across the continent. The cycle, carom board, ironing table everything got packed.
The rolled mattress neatly fitted into a square box and I felt a round hole had been fitted in a square peg. The piece de resistance was the ad hoc wardrobe they set up with thick cardboards and a metal pipe at the top for the suits that could not be folded! But once it was sealed it looked like just another box.
They packed anything and everything from pressure cooker to plates to glassware, including my grandson’s cricket gear.
When there was nothing left to pack they assembled a makeshift wastepaper basket and filled it with the scrap they had generated during the six-hour packing process and carried it away.
When they left the empty house was now staring at us. While we had all the plinth area at our disposal we had no chairs to sit! But it was business as usual for the fish in the aquarium which swam around in the confined space. Would the packers have packed and moved the fish tank too?
As the yellow black brigade withdrew from the scene we were wondering how a government agency would have handled the same job!