Standing inside the conference hall at the Kerala House, which has now turned into a makeshift godown for relief material collected for flood victims, Amir Harshal, a student of Deshbandhu College swiftly scribbles on the neatly packed and scotch-taped box “sanitary napkins” code 10, weight 9.5 kg before pulling out more scotch tape for the next box.
The room is brimming with men and relief material. At first glance it looks chaotic but at a closer look it is all working like a clockwork. At one end of the room, P.V. Rajagopal — a driver with the Kerala government is now doubling up as a supervisor — stands with sheaf of papers neatly jotting down the quantities of each item received and packed.
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On Sunday itself , five tonnes of relief material — from clothes to food packets were sent to relief camps from here. And in two days over ₹1.12 crore of money has been collected in cheques and cash.
“We started the collection centre here on Sunday. The first consignment was sent on 5 a.m. on Monday. All the flights have been carrying the cargo free of cost. So we sent the first two loads through a SpiceJet flight this morning,” said Kerala government Joint Secretary S. Syam Kumar.
It is not just resident Malayalees who have been turning up with relief. “Across Delhi, there are many Malayalee associations who are collecting relief material and sending them across. Here the number of North Indians exceed the Malayalees,” Mr. Kumar added.
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Biggest demand
In another room, women volunteers are sorting a pile of clothes, into various categories, baby clothes are separated, from sarees, to men’s trousers to bed sheets and so on.
“We are packing the clothes which are fairly in a good condition for Kerala. Only in case of bed sheets we are keeping them even if they are worn out because there is a huge demand for them. We are not returning any clothes to the donators, but the discarded clothes will be sent to one of the temples here,” a volunteer said as she gently placed a neatly pressed pista green saree into the box.
One of the biggest demands is for sanitary napkins. Till 5 p.m. on Monday, 55 kg of sanitary napkins were received and packed.
“We went from room to room in our hostel and every girl gave away the sanitary napkins she had. Everyone in college from our teachers to fellow students have been really caring and have donated huge amount of relief material and money,” Afeefa P. a student of political science in Delhi University’s Hindu College said.
Her friend Rizwana T.P. says that it was only on Sunday that someone made a call on a recently formed WhatsApp group for at least 25 volunteers over the Kerala floods, and they all signed in.
In the corridor, there are still rows and rows of boxes with diapers, baby food, milk powder, tea, buckets lined up, still to be packed and marked. The volunteers are prepared to work till late into night, till the fresh lot arrives.