Hail ho! i have woken up. At least that’s what i feel about it today. Where was i? What was i doing? Where have i come from? What do i want? What is it that is destined for me? I guess i have started to get some little idea. The deep sleep has given me enough dreams to see and feel what not many people in my surrounding have known never in their life. Yes they all know it exist. But not so personal and as real as i have.
The social and economic history of india has paraded before my eyes. The cultural errors of our nation opened up so blatant. I have rebelled against everything, but with a smile on my face, and sometimes tears in my heart. I have been hailed, applauded, scathed all at the same time by different sets of people. I have been judged, argued, praised, humiliated – everything by many different people. I have survived this all because there remains only one thing that hold me to the place where i am..my belief in myself, and that i know myself, my knowledge, my intimate awareness of something so much otherwise known, my potentials, my past records.
I have done this, and i know i will do this again. To fight and to win this. the system, which is so much natural to human kind for its existence, then to feel the shortcomings and defects of it, and then to re-invent it for the contemporary times. It’s not about blaming it anymore. It’s about re inventing it this time. But think..where will the blame go.?? To the one who will strive to re invent it. Isn’t ?
Never mind, take the poison cauldron , but make life better for the future generation to live. Sacrifice is a demand of nature to see the change happen to your needs.
SCI has ships too old and outdated that i never knew where will i arrive after so many years of service with them. And then when i switch over (to foreign companies), i feel as though it is a new life, and seafaring is just come to me, like for a cadet!
But even here i have not yet got my peace of mind that i have been actually searching for—the perfect system towards which the policy-makers point us to , somewhere too distant and too hazy to even feel. i have to give myself time to feel whether it exist or not. The feed backs don’t support it ‘s existence. People actually are a cause for their own misery. They cannot be trusted as much. They live by opportunity principle. They live for themselves. Cannot blame them or criticise them. All i can do and demand is -- not to get a blame on myself, for whatever disturbances i have created or will be creating in the system, to reinvent it. Someday someone had to do this for the change. Perchance its me today. Fate has brought me to do it. Can’t help, if that be the destiny of things.
The period of rest- as a legislative need for STCW compliance, and the Economics study into labour consumption is not much in the theme as yet. Honest and truthful data will be required. But one will cross the other, to upset the veracity of the data. Many seafarers will not want their salaries to be lowered to support the increased total crew on board so that the period-of-rest requirements could be met to letter and spirit.
Human intervention will have to be bypassed for an accurate data collection, therefore.
The inter-personal relationship will have to be re defined . is it master who is all responsible.?/
Then how will he ensure a truthful representation of period of rest versus compliance with STCW period of rest- versus vessel’s other commercial necessities.
It going to be tough, unless the authorities make intervention to bypass the human involvement in collection of this data.
The name of the ships are after the PVC winners of our country. Who gave these ships these names?! Then, the machinery and equipment at some places are extremely flabbergasting and sometimes most nonsensical to be there at all. For example, the 10 pumps we had in our pump room, --feels like a luxury, were actually a result of short thinking by the company managers of those days. Seems like they went by ‘reputation and image building’ , pompous acts to have selected such a design. There were 4 eductors as well. Then, 3 ladder on each side , port and starboard, --ever heard or seen such a luxury. The four life boats! All such flabbergasted. Who the hell thought to buy them for business or for showmanship , or to make money for himself through some underhand commission?! History holds that during the purchase of these vessels, the then naval chief was also an ex-officio head of SCI, which is why these names and such unusual designs. And there is not just one such species..there are fourteen of them, and made by none other than Hyundai!
