Packing up remotely

Pooja on video call with the packers in India who are arranging to have her belongings sent back to Malaysia.

A GROUP of fourth-year Malaysian medical students have arranged for their belongings to be shipped home since returning to India to retrieve them is not possible due to the pandemic.

The students of Melaka Manipal Medical College campus in Karnataka will monitor the packing via WhatsApp video call to ensure that only “essential items” are included.

One of them, Rishvini Pooja Sigamani, who oversaw her belongings being packed last week, said she was only bringing back her clothes and novels.

“I have a deep attachment to my clothes and novels and that is why I want them shipped back to me.

“I expect them to return with mould and dust but that is okay, ’’ said the 22-year-old from Taman Palm Grove in Klang, who is better known as Pooja.

However, she said she would be leaving her textbooks and electrical appliances behind.

“I don’t need my textbooks anymore and I feel it’s not worth bringing the appliances back, ’’ she said.

Pooja’s coursemate Chai Yu Shen, 21, too, plans to monitor his belongings being packed.

He left behind his desktop computer and motorcycle in addition to clothes and books.

“I need my computer. And I have asked the movers to help sell my motorbike, ’’ said Petaling Jaya-based Chai.

He added that besides watching the packing through video call, one of his lecturers, who is his mentor, would oversee the process.

Some 135 Malaysian students, whose belongings have been left behind in campus hostels in India, had engaged a moving company in India as well as sought the university’s approval to remove their things.

They are all students pursuing medicine via a twinning programme between the Melaka Manipal Medical College here and its sister campus in Manipal, Karnataka, India.

“The university vetted the company and gave us the green light, ’’ said Chai.

When contacted, Chai’s mentor Prof Dr Sharmila Torke said she would be overseeing the packing of several of her wards.

Both Pooja and Chai, who came home for a break just before the movement control order in March, could not return to their college when Malaysia closed its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This meant the students had to follow their clinical phase lectures online.

Both Pooja and Chai are currently awaiting placement at the Sultanah Fatimah Specialist Hospital in Muar to undergo their two-year clinical training phase here before graduating.