After the Tug and Tow episode, I decided to stay away from fly-by-night operators and get down to some serious business in the Merchant Navy. I got in touch with a friend of mine and asked for his advice.
He spoke to me like the Bombay Stock Exchange President and said, “If you want to make money in the Merchant Navy, stick to the oil sector because Bulk-Carriers, Container-Carriers, Car-Carriers, Passenger Vessels, Casino Ships, Cruise-Liners, and Product Tankers, etc. are all ‘loss-making sectors. I have a friend, who has a friend, who had a friend, who has…can put you in touch with a manning agent for offshore vessels.”
Just like a battleship making a slow turn towards a new heading with the wheel hard-over, my career seemed to be taking a new direction. A few days later I found myself reporting to a company called ‘Safe & Sure’. ‘Safe & Sure’ checked my certification and instructed me to get my medicals done before they could post me on board as Chief Officer on that very day.
A new journey
I rushed to Ballard Pier in South Mumbai and popped into one of the hundreds of ‘DG Shipping Certified’ medical kiosks. A sign on the board read3,500 bucks for a two-day medical and 5000 bucks for a 15-minute medical. I was intrigued with the 15-minute medical, so I did the mental Maths quickly. I reasoned that if had to stay in Mumbai for another two days the cost of the hotel stay would exceed that amount. I chose the ‘Tatkal’ scheme!
A quack entered the room. He was the antithesis of any doctor I had ever met. He had eyebrows that defied gravity and I thought I detected a faint whiff of horse-shit from his body. I flung caution to the wind and put 5000 bucks on the table. My doubts about him being a veterinarian doctor were confirmed when he said “I need to check your anus!” I nearly blew a gasket! I was not prepared for this type of medical examination. “I just don’t understand what you think you’re going to find there.”
I retorted in my most argumentative voice. “Why don’t you check my pulse and BP in the normal manner like all other doctors do?” His voice was stern “Sir, please turn around, face the wall, pull your pants down, bend over and spread your cheeks.”
I was still protesting “Please don’t insert a thermometer in there.” He calmly responded like a stewardess on an airliner which was about to hit the first twin towers “Please relax, sir.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he got readings for BP, pulse, lipid profile and alcohol tests by looking into my brown eye. Fifteen minutes later I was on my way back to Safe & Sure with an authentic ‘DG Shipping Certified Medical Certificate’.
He spoke to me like the Bombay Stock Exchange President and said, “If you want to make money in the Merchant Navy, stick to the oil sector .”
Back at Safe & Sure, they already had the paperwork ready for me to join up the Supply Boat. One guy popped out from nowhere and asked me to sign the documents without delay. Some political personality was visiting the company so nobody had the time to brief me. Everybody was running around the office like they were trying to swat a fly.
One of the guys informed me that the ship’s Master was Ex-Navy so I wouldn’t have trouble settling down. I left the office, got into a stinking fishing boat from Ferry Wharf near Green Gate and landed on the ship at inner anchorage by late afternoon, after lunch hours. Once on the ship, I made my way on board looking out for the Captain.
The temperature outside was a sizzling 42°C and that meant it was hot enough to boil a tortoise. But there, sleeping on the settee, in the hermetic confines of the Bridge, was a pot-bellied man, being assaulted with air-conditioning. He was about 20 years older than me and wore his lungi at half-mast with plenty of holes in his ‘banyan’.
It looked like he never combed his hair, but instead dipped his Barnet in a bowl of starch every morning. He seemed happy as a clam in high tide. His head looked like a cross between a helicopter and an egg, with his ponytail sticking at the back of his neck. He was drooling spit from the side of his mouth and snoring loudly.
Merchant Navy experiences
I didn’t know how to wake Hannibal Lecter from his sleep, so I kept staring at his belly button moving up and down in perfect rhythm with his snoring. His face was as wizened as a walnut. His facial topiary was well-trimmed and his beard was pointy. I was wondering – “if this man was the Master of the ship, then he must certainly be moonlighting as an ex-Naval Officer”.
Two minutes later his head jerked and his eyes popped open. Having just got up from his sleep he looked frumpy, dishevelled and surprised, all at the same time. He reached for his false teeth on the tabletop and grovelled in his mouth to fit them there. Saliva was dripping down his hands when he finished. Then he was beside himself with excitement!
“Myself, Captain Putthenveetil Unninathan. Putthenveetil in Malayalam means ‘New House’. If you shout Putthenveetil in Chengenasheri town, all the doors of only the new houses will open to you” he pointed out. Now, I bet you didn’t know that God works, even in ‘God’s own country!
One of the guys informed me that the ship’s Master was Ex-Navy so I wouldn’t have trouble settling down. I left the office, got into a stinking fishing boat from Ferry Wharf near Green Gate and landed on the ship at inner anchorage by late afternoon, after lunch hours. Once on the ship, I made my way on board looking out for the Captain.
He extended his hand and asked, “You must be the new Chief Officer?” I didn’t take his wet hands; instead, I did a Namaste in good old Indian fashion with hands folded, head bowed a little bit, eyes looking at his sandals and smile plastered on my face. “Are you a politician?” he asked.
I tweeted “No sir, I’m an ex-Naval Officer, reporting as Chief Officer onboard.” He measured me up like the Fleet Commander does on the parade ground and said “Good, even I’m ex-Navy.”My immediate question was “When did you serve in the Navy, sir?” He frowned trying to think hard “…in the 1965 war against the Portuguese. I was then on INS Viraat, as soon as the Japanese surrendered to the Americans, we chased the Portuguese back to Portugal.”
I burst out laughing “Seriously sir?”
He laughed a nervous laugh. Then he scrabbled his ear for a second or two before turning goggle-eyed with fright. It had probably not occurred to him that he would get caught one day by a genuine officer from the Navy. “The only reason why I say I’m ex-Navy is because people around here give me a little more respect” he quipped.
“The punishment for impersonation is fourteen years imprisonment”, I said authoritatively. “Even for ex-Naval people and civilians” I quickly added, lest he finds a loophole in the law. Then I reassured him “Don’t worry sir, your secret’s safe with me.” I couldn’t believe I was admonishing my boss within the first five minutes of meeting him, in my new job, on the very first day of work, in the Merchant Navy.
“The only reason why I say I’m ex-Navy is because people around here give me a little more respect” he quipped.
Putthenveetil looked at me with a new sense of respect, almost awe and we became friends-for-life. He informed me that he was planning to sign off from the ship the next week, so he intended to log-promote me to Master of the ship. He asked to see my Articles-of-Agreement (AoA).
Then he pointed out that I had signed the AoA for wages of a Second Officer instead of a Chief Officer. I was in shock. I remembered putting my signature without reading the small print on the Contract Letter. Putthenveetil frowned to himself and seemed to roll my predicament around in his head before saying “Don’t worry, I’ll log-promote you from 2nd Officer to Chief Officer today and then tomorrow, from Chief Officer to Master.”
This was not funny to me, so I asked him “What about my pay? Will it remain the same?”
Finer details
It wasn’t a question to be answered. “At least you’ll be Master”, he said. “Next time be more careful when you sign a document.” The rest of the evening I was wondering why the Navy hadn’t adopted this procedure, because I would have loved to be log-promoted from Lieutenant to Flag Officer, minus the pay if need be!I was also worried about having a genuine medical certificate so I told him how the doctor had stripped me naked.
Putthenveetil replied “He must have been checking to see if you suffer from piles. It is in lines with a recent amendment to the STCW convention. The rules here change very often, but don’t ever be afraid of being naked in front of a doctor” he advised. Then he told me a story.
Sometimes, my mind would switch over to female-mud-wrestling reveries, like it used to when I was in the NDA, during the science period. But he could carry a conversation with the delicacy of a quail’s egg dipped in celery sauce and the pungency of a chilly chicken Malabari.
“I usually sleep naked at home at night,” he said.“One night I heard loud noises from the kitchen, so I crept there with my hockey stick and shouted “Ada kalla, Adukkalayil ninne irangi vaa” (Come out you thief). It turned out to be my sister-in-law who was helping herself to appams from the fridge. When she saw my wiener, she ran out of the house shouting “Ayoyo, ayoyo! Bhudham!” (OMG, it’s a ghost!). And from that day onwards she never returned to trouble us.
Putthenveetil would talk to me endlessly on any subject and could go on and on like a roller-coaster without rules. Sometimes, my mind would switch over to female-mud-wrestling reveries, like it used to when I was in the NDA, during the science period. But he could carry a conversation with the delicacy of a quail’s egg dipped in celery sauce and the pungency of a chilly chicken Malabari.
Once, he explained in excruciatingly painful detail, what to do in case of a tidal wave. I occasionally said “yeah” to get into the conversation. When that didn’t work, I excused myself frequently to go to the toilet to put my fingers in my ears and make loud whooping sounds of a Red Indian warrior, just to balance the input in my ears with some output from my throat. Most of the time I let him ride his wave.
Putthenveetil signed off from the vessel the following week after log-promoting me to Master. I only wished he had stuck around long enough to log-promote me to Chairman of the Shipping Corporation of India!
