Moving On Up

For a while I was stuck underneath the cardboard mountain of boxes that Caravan Packers and Movers transformed A151, our Gurgaon apartment, into. Then in our new Hauz Khas apartment I was buried underneath every newspaper I'd read in the past month. Caravan Packers and Movers seem to be of the belief that if wrapping a glass in a sheet of newspaper will keep it safe, wrapping it in six sheets will keep it really safe. Unwrapping all those really safe glasses and half used bottles of condiments made my hands ache for two days! This afternoon the last big puzzle piece fell into place, when Airtel came and gave us a landline and broadband internet connection. So now I can blog again, and email again, and receive spam again... Joy!

For a while things were a little touch and go with the new flat, we weren't sure if we would be able to move in as planned. We had a “final, pre-moving check” last Sunday evening, five days before we took possession, and found there was still a lot of work to do. And before you think we’re fussy bastards, all we asked for was the electrical sockets to be screwed into the walls, for curtain poles to be fixed above the windows, the tatty furniture inside the apartment to be removed and for the house to have an industrial clean. We opened one of the bedroom cupboards and found a stockpile of plastic department store bags, an entire double shelf, neatly folded and stacked. Maybe the previous occupant had OCD - not one with a cleanliness angle - I’ve seen the ceiling fans. The landlord’s son (obviously a layabout in his 20’s whose Dad is trying to make work for his keep) said the reason the place wasn’t ready was that the painter hadn’t turned up today. I didn’t know painters did electrical work, fixed curtain poles and chucked stuff on the Indian version of a skip? And what was the painter doing on the previous 10 days? We understood, because layabout son told us so, that the cleaner couldn’t come until the painter had been. Like, obviously…

On Thursday morning, while I supervised eight hard working but unfortunately unattractive men turn A151 from a home to a giant pile of boxes, Rod went to view the new flat with the landlord. Unfortunately for the landlord, not much progress had been made since Sunday, and Rod admits he may have yelled a bit. Quite a bit. The painter had been and there was one youth cleaning the place with a cloth but no cleaning products - less industrial clean, more rearranging the dirt. The plastic bag collection and old sofas were still in place. The landlord told Rod not to worry, the flat would be ready by eight that evening. Rod told the landlord like Arnie, he'd be back...

On his return back to Hauz Khas after dinner, Rod the sceptic took the full cleaning kit: a large bucket, a scrubbing brush, cream cleanser, disinfectant. He's not sure what they fed the youth doing the cleaning, because he'd actually cleaned the whole place. Not well, of course, but it was a start. Rod showed him how to use cream cleanser to clean all the dusty grease from the light switch plates, and how to clean the inside of cupboards. The kid looked surprised. A white man is a man of status, and men of status don't clean, they get their minions to do it for them. Rod was happy for the landlord's minion to do it, but only if it was done to Rod's standards! Between them the place was clean enough to move into the following day. Which was a good thing, because we didn't have anything to sit on at A151 that wasn't covered in bubble wrap or cardboard!