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.