Skipped lunch then and now !!

Today i was hungry for my lunch, but due to some 'unforeseen-eventualities' which i knew gonna hit at the lunch time, landed in such a way that i almost lost a huge calories of my body and , obviously, missed my lunch. But technically i did not miss the lunch , i just had to postpone it a couple of hours. As the saying goes, its the "burning desire which actually burns you" accurately fitted in my case and the thing which got burnt was my intestines.  I waited for the so called eventuallity to end and kept alive my desire which brought back a bunch of memories which i'd archived in my personal folder under the name "missed lunch".

The last time i missed a lunch with a great "burning desire" happened a very long time back.  It was in the month of August 2003 (not a 'very long time' though) when i was attending an Urban Sensitization Camp in the village of Kumbalanghi, in the outskirts of my city, Kochi, Ernakulam.  It was the part of our course curriculum of MBA & MHRM of  Rajagiri School of Management, Kochi.

Basically it was an OJT (on job training) sort of arrangement we had there.  The entire team consisted of 100 students , boys & girls, and been allotted a particular ward/ area of the village and carry out a proper cleanship and maintenance of their roads and surroundings.  Which, i must say with great pride, was completed in a pretty satisfactory way.

The camp was planned for 7 days and we actually repaired around 10 kms ( citation ? r u kidding?) of roads in that village .  Our stay was arranged in a satisfactory way  and the mess was rigged up in a nearby building, looked after by the whole-n-soul ,Master Chef named George.  ( I still remember him for his devotion to the duty, carrying a rosary always in his right hand).

So, on the last day of our camp there was a lunch arranged for the entire team and a few invited guests of the village, arranged alongside a beautiful river which bisected the village.  All the food items were  ready to be shipped to the location.  I stayed along with the mess secretary Sony Varghese, a great guy with lots of charisma and concern for the team, helping in the transporting of the food items to the venue.  By the time every thing got transferred from the kitchen to the location , it was way too late.  And both of us started from there hitchiking an auto rickshaw.

Now, one should understand that i pointed out about the event for 'the team mates and a few invited guests', which in most of the case is impossible to adhere.  And in this scenario it happened in the exact way i explained.  Me and Sony landed at the place, by the time the food had evaporated into the crowd, including the team mates, invited guests and many more uninvited ones.    I could see the short tempered Sony's skin colour was becoming red ( a clear indication that he has reached the flash point).  I could not make out the exact situation which was happening in my body as i was dark skinned and it is difficult to make out.

Sony, turned to me with his hands on the hips, speechless. I could read the message from his body language "yaar rathu...what the F**K?". It took me a couple of minutes to cope up with the situation and to completely agree with the reality that "i missed my lunch".  Luckily, our Chef George gave us two spoons of Soya bean curry, which was perfectly divided between us.  And what else should I say, i fell in love with the Soya Bean curry then. 

The camp got over, its been years now, i left the course, joined Navy, all the others finished their course too and got their dream jobs.  But one skipped lunch brought me back to those good memories ( yeah ..i said it , good memories) whether its about a missed lunch, or pain and agony.  I may not say with surety that these things might not have been recorded or staying in any ones' memory.  But i do remember it....and i do cherish it, each and every bit !  There aint any time machine in this world which could take us to the times where we lived, only the memories can bridge this time frame within a split second. 

So, that brings to the end of this story, where i missed a lunch and remembered another one.  Thanks to the uunforeseen eventuality of "breaking the rope in heavy winds" which made me remember my times.

rathucapricon: Much ado about (absolutely) nothing !!

rathucapricon: Much ado about (absolutely) nothing !!

Much ado about (absolutely) nothing !!

Last wednesday I finished my 55 day long sailing to the southern hemisphere, but my blog is not about how " I" felt ! this time its the other way. We started our journey back to India from Port Louis , Mauritius on the 26th of April 2010. Although it was a planned trip according to our schedule, we were directed for another task; this time its an Anti piracy support duty to one of our small sailing yatch on which one of our bravest officer is doing a circumnavigation around the world and he's on his last leg from Cape Town to Mumbai....a gruesome stretch of 4500 miles....Phew !!

It might sound very easy for anybody to think when you come to know that its a voyage , suypporting somebody to reach safely. But believe me, it takes a huge toll on the psyche of a sailor. for the first time in my career I could not plot a track or predict a course to steer for almost 2200 nautical miles ( eh...that is almost 4000 kilometers) at an average speed of 6 knots (10 kilometers/hour). As days passed by the frustration was building up, i almost finished my movie collection (Indian, Hollywood & pornos).....what a misery!!

Now, as an officer its a duty with paramount importance to keep the morale and motivation of the sailors high , at all times. The game comes where oneself is actually going through the same situation. If one could press "PAUSE" in the remote button of life and watch the frames with scripts projected in front, one can see how sensitive the life is , like a tight rope walk between sanity and insanity. There have been cases where people have become completely crazy. So (coming back)...I , instinctively started a different approach. My plan was to make them dream , make them hope, no matter how late we go back home, how rough the seas become...i made them dream.

It was very simple, I asked them "What would they do once you reach your home port?"......The fun is here folks ! I got such answers which made me laugh, some made me think, some made me sigh, and some made me sad, and last but not the least some made me totally blank ! If i take an average around 40 % told me that they want to have food...some wanted to go and watch girls (eve teasing & dropping..oops),....some wanted to simple spent time with their wives (ooooh...i never questioned them much).....some wanted to drink sober and booze out !

And i continued my mission, stopping every passerby in the alleway of my 85 meter ship , shooting them questions and receiving it. The results were amazing , within days of the initiation of the plan i could find people actually waiting for me to appear in front of them and there it goes. Usually i like to listen to people, a lot, well i was living my passion there at that moment.
I dont know whether it gave them hope, peace or solace....but i'm damn sure, that it did give them a bit of happiness at that moment !!

Well things are not over yet, as soon as the ship came alongside after a single stretch 16 days journey out of which 14 days were of no hope !,finally we were back in the home port. Now the twist comes here.....all those things said and done were forgotten in an instant . So the moral of the story is 'Hoping for the happiness'....no matter its for a second or a day or a week or so on.....its just the hope for happiness, let it be that solo circumnavigator, or my quartermaster who got married just 3 months back terribly missing his wife, or the biggest drunkard of our mess....it was hope ...everywhere !!

Goodbye Cargados....Goodbye Amarend !

          Last year almost the same time, we'd started our voyage back to India from 20 degrees down South of the Equator from the Island nation of Mauritius. Before that we'd had a brief survey task in the shoals patches of the Cargados Carajos a.k.a St. Brandon Islands. It was really testing, the seas were rough (the best of roughness), the weather was tricky as fast as a magician, a sky full of birds (fearless ones really enjoying their goddamn freedom, I'd say) and what else should I say, I got "baptized" into my navy life, truly and completely.

 

          Now why did i title it as Goodbye Amarend ?? Its the name of one of our sailor, whom i've not met, but heard of, who lost his life during one of the survey tasks just two years back from this day. His name was Amarend Kumar Sharma. Still now there is a small memorial made in the island of St.Raphael which lies on the northern side of the Cargados Shoals. 

 

          I believe, firmly, that there is an unwritten code of conduct and MOU between the Great Mother Ocean and the Soul of a seafarer. And it goes like this, whoever you are, how much you are experienced, weathered, ruff n tuff.....remember you are just a piece of tissue paper in her hands. If she would, she could tear you apart with nothing to spare. So the keyword here is patience and Respect to the nature.

              Amarend Kumar was no less than an ordinary man, perhaps much more sea experience than me. But on that unfortunate day he fell from the boat for almost a brief time of 5 minutes, and the high waves of the sea took him into her laps. The search and rescue ops were carried out for almost 20 days, all they could find was those which i mentioned in the beginning. 

             2009 i came here as a new kid, i went back as ' little experienced' , returned this year in 2010 and i'm going back as still 'little experienced ' ( reminding myself to realize the might of mother nature and this ah! woe! me!). But every time me and my crew ventured out to the eastern seaboard on the shoals we were put to test; rigorous test, and believe me, those crests and troughs of the waves rising like that legendary sea dragon still trouble me in my nightmares. For the first time i was praying to those gods (out of my long list) requesting to watch our backs and safeguard us from her fury! 

             One thing was sure, we could feel an invisible presence throughout our adrenalin rush, was that god, an angel, or that poor soul of amarend?? As an officer, i would love to believe that Amarend was our Guardian, it was him, him and him only.

          Now the survey of the Cargados CArajos shoals are over, and wont be touched by anyone for the next 10 to 15 years, and so is Amarend. There is a reason why i emphasized on the number of years, because the last successfull survey was carried out by one Lieutenant Mudge of the Royal Navy in the year 1832 !! and thatz a quite big number. 

          On the final phase,our GPS observation and Tide observation team was dismantling the settings and getting back for the ship and I'd sent across a chocolate bar, specifically for Amarend, and they did....placed that chocolate bar on his memorial, bid farewell to him!!

          As i was manouvering my ship from the anchorage and setting course for mauritius, i turned back into those reefs of Cargados, hoping to see him wave at me, sent a kiss in the air for him, a kiss for my brother Amarend.....Goodbye Cargados....Goodbye Amarend.