Photo Credit orangeacidExperience with a New Delhi Packer and Mover

I am staying in Delhi for the last 21 years and since then changed residence for three times but never availed the services of any professional packer. This was due to the fact that I did not accumulate enough junk so that the services of a packer would be essential. But if the first shifting was a smooth one, with each shifting it became difficult to handle all by myself.
In those times what I used to do is hire a tempo, pay for the loaders/unloaders(usually they were 4 people), fix a date and time.

Now, packing was not a part of their duty so the We had to do it ourselves. That was another real tough job- get packing boxes- free or by paying 10-15 Rs to grocery shops and collect, segregate and pack them inorder before the packer people came. I forgot to mention that all these transfers were local, means we shifted from one colony in Delhi to another colony. So there was not much problem.

This time it was 2008. We have stayed in this address for last 4 years, another 12 years in the same building but opposite wing and 1 year at another location.

We had indeed collected a lot of things to carry.
So I decided to hire the services of a professional packer.
I searched Internet for few days, looked into forums like mouthshut.com and read their reviews. The reviews were mainly negative with lots of horror stories. This was more for people who shifted to far away places like Bangalore, Hyderabad etc.

I saw few good comments for a Gurgaon based packer but when I called them I found their rate was very high.

Now, this exercise was good one in the sense it gave me a fair idea about the charge for this service and what are the scopes of their services-like packing, loading, unloading, unpacking.

I continued searching for a good packer so sent emails to few companies. I started getting their reply. Some were very fast, some were slow. Seems, they all are not net savvy.

So I choose a fellow who was very fast in reply and who sent reminders too often. They are named as Times Logistics Limited.
I am happy with their services. In fact from the Internet stories what I heard I was very scared about getting my boxes unharmed.

This people(Times Logistics Limited) came early (8am), did the packing carefully till 15 hrs and shifted the goods in reasonable time. The only negative aspect was that they brought a small truck in the beginning though they had earlier inspected my house. But they quickly brought another truck and finished the job.

I am relived that my shifting was over without much problem.

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Today is the birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of USSR, the first socialist state in the world.

Generation of Indian people have learned to fight for peoples causes and die for the cause. The inspiration was always Lenin.

Millions of people who has never seen Lenin or the country he founded or the system he defended, always lived with name of Lenin in their heart.

I have lived in USSR for 12 years while studying. There was peace all around. A stable country with almost zero law and order problem.
Health was for all, so was education. They had access to art galleries, museums, theatres, ballet, drama, circus. In short all the doors were open to them. They need not worry about their future. This was Soviet Union. And today is the birthday of its founder Lenin.



I consider him as one of the finest revolutionaries of the world who has kept a legacy which will remain forever.


Read more about him in wikipedia

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин), born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Улья́нов), and also known by the pseudonyms Nikolai Lenin and N. Lenin, (April 10, 1870 OS[1] – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and from 1922, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union. His contributions to Marxist theory are commonly referred to as Leninism.

Read more about him in wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin)

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Photo Credit mikahiironniemi

Where are you Seyum, my friend from Eritria?

I still remember him a tall shy boy, always standing in a bending position also while moving . He was with me in the physical chemistry group. We had common teachers, common classes. He said he is from eritria.
In those days I did not know where eritria was located. It was seventies and the country where we studied was USSR.

Evrybody whom the soviet union supported was taken by us, the foreign as something very natural to support for. Soviet union would support only genuine movements. We knew Ethiopia had its monarch Haile Selasi removed and a new revolutionary leader Mengistu Haile Merium has taken over.

To be a supporter of Ethipia and its leader Mengistu Haile Merium was something fashionable and very natural and I would say on hindsight, very safe, those days in Moscow.

For the Soviet government Ethipia was fighing a sessionary movement. Later I came to know that they are also Marxist in their outlook.

I saw Ethipians and I saw eritrians. There was difference. The eritrians were calm and quite and sober.

Those days, Eritrians in Moscow could not openly argue their cases, they were not supported by the USSR. They kept very low profile, studied hard and waited for their turn.

Seuym was my friend. I feel sad that in those days I did not spend more time with him. Language was a problem. He spoke English with his accent. I had difficulty to understand. He said there are many Indian teachers in Eritria. He studied under one such teacher and till date remembers him as a real teacher. He had very high opinion about Indian teachers.
My interest in Eritrea was rekindled this week when I read a book by an ENglish author Justin Hill - "Ciao Asmara". Justin as an young man visited Eritrea as an English teacher. His views are very passionately expressed in this book. It shows that he loves Eritrea and it people.

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