After graduating from Marine Engineering and Research Institute, I had joined
Anglo Eastern Ship Mgmt part of AE group, one of the most reputed companies
to visit our campus. I was \smug about it mainly because the market situation
wasn’t upbeat and jobs, let alone a campus job, were scarce. I was deputed as a junior engineer on board MV Maas, a Canadian merchant ship. Let me throw some light on the organization of a typical merchant vessel. At the top a merchant ship is a Captain or Master, the over all in- charge of the ship and its dealings with the headquarters and the various port authorities; he is responsible for the smooth and safe management of the ship. Executives are divided vertically in navigation and engineering streams. The officers from the navigational stream are responsible for the safe navigation of the vessel including chartering the course of the ship and overseeing the cargo loading / unloading. This department is headed by a first officer reported to by three other officers’ namely second officer, third officer and the junior officer. The engineering department
deals with the engineering systems on board a vessel including a main
propulsion plant, an auxiliary power plant and various other myriad
supporting systems which work in tandem for smooth operation of the
ship. The smooth operation of this power plant is the primary responsibility
of the engineering team. Additionally the responsibility extends to
machinery maintenance planning, watch keeping over plant machinery in
operation, recording various operating parameters associated with the
power plants, planning cargo handling and ensuring optimal levels of
fuel supplies at all times. The department is headed by the chief engineer
and followed by the second engineer, third engineer, one or two fourth
engineers and a junior engineer. Additionally there are about 30- 40
employees divided between the two departments who serve as crew and
are utilised in various general and specific positions. On a mid March 2001 night,
shortly after leaving a port in Cameroon in central Africa heading for
to the Great Lakes of Canada, we were having a barbeque party to celebrate
the birthday of the third officer. A barbeque and a cocktail bar were
erected on open deck and guests were provided with raw fillets and steaks
of meat and fish for grilling. Everybody was enjoying the
party with some dancing, some drinking and some busy narrating anecdotes
from their past experiences. As I was still on engineering watch, I
was keeping to the insides of the ship anticipating a UMS (Unattended
Machinery Space) alarm. UMS is a nifty modern piece of technology which
allows the machinery spaces to be left un attended for long periods
of time, automatically monitoring all the critical operating parameters
and sounding an alarm in case of a malfunction. It has eased the life
of engineers on vessels considerably, saving hundreds of man hours in
the process. Being inside, I was one of
the first to hear a scream from the Galley (Ship’s Kitchen). I dashed
towards the sound along with a few others and found a visibly upset
Chief cook, shaking with fear. He revealed that, having just entered
the galley through a back door to fetch more fish fillets, he saw a
teenage boy eating the raw steaks who promptly ran away on being found.
More importantly the young boy did not appear to be a member of the
ship staff. By this time everybody had joined the commotion. A brief
search did not reveal much and some people started branding the incident
as a case of drunken hallucination. However the master ordered a full
fledged stowaway search. A stowaway is a person who hides himself
(sometimes for days on end) in a ship in an attempt to reach a desired
country with a promise of a better future. The search didn’t find anybody
but revealed evidence of a stowaway on board in some abandoned food
items. By this time the ship was in mid-Atlantic and turning back was
out of question. The master decided to continue on course to Canada
and deal with the consequences (the ship carrying a stowaway is deemed
at fault for the stowaway situation and may be fined or even denied
entry). The next day was spent in a thorough search again. The second
engineering team, headed by me, found a frail and starving kid under
the cargo handling crane compartment. We took him to a special confinement
room where our South African Radio Engineer questioned him in a Swahili
dialect but the boy refused to understand or acknowledge any question
posed to him. According to the international code, once discovered the
safety and care of a stowaway is the responsibility of the ship, so
he was provided with a bed bundle and some food. All the executives on board
were put on rolling duty to spend 4 hours, with the boy lest he harm
himself. I was a little scared and annoyed when I was assigned the 8
to 12. I however took it as a challenge and braced myself up to it. The first day, I was really
uncomfortable around his dazed self. However by the next day I had started
communicating with him in sign language. He asked me for a cigarette
and I got him one after taking captain’s concurrence. Over time, maybe
since I was the youngest one on board and was the one who found him,
he took a liking to me. I started getting him steaks and noodles from
the galley and lent my discman for him to listen to music. He told me
that he attended school for 4 years and had a family back home consisting
3 brothers and 2 sisters. On the fifth night he wrote a number which
appeared to be a phone number, I immediately informed the captain about
the development and after a few hits and trials with obscure international
phone codes, we were successfully able to call a local shop in a town
near that port. It was an emotional scene to watch this teenager talk
to his family who he had left behind probably never to see again. I
was forced to think about the hardships which cause human to do most
extra ordinary things. It was especially difficult for me because the
boy had started to consider me a guardian. Neither of us could speak
or understand each other but I could feel his pain and he could sense
my concern for him vice versa and thanked me in return with gratuitous
eyes. By this time the coast guard
and the authorities from Cameroon and Canada were informed by the head
quarters and the ship was advised to stay on course to Canada where
the immigration authorities would take over the custody of the stow
away. As planned in a few days he was taken away by the Canadian authorities
and the last we heard he was flown back to Cameroon. When he was leaving I could
see he was scared and didn’t actually want to leave his temporary
home, I felt miserable as I could do little to help him. I didn’t
know his name and knew I would never see him again. The whole experience
was surreal to me. It had dramatically brought in front of me the cold
hard reality of life and made me wonder how we take so many things for
granted. Having seen him closely, I was able to empathise with him and
not judge his actions on evidence unlike others or even myself, of a
few years back. The incident took me from being a self absorbed guy
to a more humane person with a deeper emotional quotient. Six years on I still think
about him sometimes and wish he is well. In this world torn by boundaries
and various other discriminating factors, I realised that we all are
inherently one people, we feel the same emotions and when pressed with
circumstances each one of us is capable of very drastic actions not
too different from that of the anonymous boy’s. |
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