KARACHI: The pickup truck is tipping slightly at the back from too much weight. There are two men crouching there at the sides too as they support the panes of glass with their hands as the vehicle moves on Karachi’s rough roads.

They are beasts of burden too, loading goods or household items to shift or move them from one place to another. But unlike mules, donkeys or camels, they don’t need to take rest breaks. Neither do they need eating breaks. Just fill up their tanks with fuel and you are all set.

Yes, we are talking about the iron beasts of burden, the moving trucks and pickups available for hire for carrying goods.

You are moving from PECHS to Clifton? Or is it from North Nazimabad to Gulshan or Defence? Well, if you are just going to have a truck loaded up under your supervision and move, all you’ll need is a rope and a couple of labourers to lift things and load them up. Each trip costs from a couple of thousand rupees to Rs4,000, depending on the distance of travel.

But if the job of packing and moving seems too overwhelming, there are also the packers. Over the years they have made moving very easy. They come over, prepare lists of what is to go where and pack all the fragile, breakable things, decoration pieces, household china, kitchen utensils extra carefully in marked boxes while lining them with old newspapers or styrofoam. The books go in one box, the clothes in another. The furniture, electronics, the stuff in the children’s room, etc is all taken care of by placing in marked cartons. But, of course, they are available at a cost.

If you don’t want to lighten the pocket, you have to roll up your sleeves and get to it yourself. That’s where the loading trucks come in. Hire a truck, see how much heavy stuff you need to have lifted and hire labour accordingly. They will take care of the heavy stuff but you can’t leave everything to them. Someone has to supervise the loading at one point and someone also has to supervise the unloading at the other end.

“When I wasn’t looking they unloaded all the heavy stuff outside the main door of our new house and blocked most of the way. Then the way was also blocked for us to go inside and direct what went where,” says a housewife who recently moved to a new apartment in Clifton. “Then they were also in such a rush, they pretty much dumped everything, resulting in breaking so many things, including some cherished heirlooms,” she says. “I don’t think I will ever repeat doing it myself again. It is not so simple.”

These days besides the professional movers and the open-back loading trucks and pickups there is also something which can be described as between both options. You may find the covered Chinese loading trucks neatly parked on a service road near Teen Talwar or Boat Basin. They have proper storage place in them and once loaded neatly the things are not even visible to the world. What’s more these vehicles have advertisements printed on them on either side and the back. They are making money from the advertisements, making them reasonable and open to bargaining by those looking to hire moving trucks.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2018