BLOG 1 - INTRODUCTION: Marine Musings 2 - Secunderabad and Pre-University

MARINE MUSINGS 2 - BLOG 1

Call me Rangan.

(I have always wanted to imitate Herman Melville's Moby Dick "Call me Ishmael".)

Now that has been done away with, more than 50 years after reading the novel, I commence this blog as a narrative of my sea career, starting from the age of 16. I have written about my childhood and school years in Marine Musings 1, but it is likely to be of no interest to anybody but me, hence I am omitting it. However, be warned that I may start using bits of it as a prologue and flashback in future blogs.

I begin with the year prior to my joining DMET.

I am bravely venturing forth, not knowing how many will read this, not knowing how many will comment on it - brickbats or otherwise.

I sometimes tend to be long winded, but I have written about what I experienced, what I saw, what I felt over a 40 year sea career. By stating facts as they happened, I may have commented detrimentally about a person, which I will stand by.

I have edited it into smaller, readable sections, with subsequent ones appearing on a regular basis, so as not to overwhelm the reader.

I have waited a long time for inspiration to strike me in order to write a fictional best seller, but I lack the imagination to conjure up a fascinating tale.

The next best thing was to write about my experiences in a factual manner.

But write I must. The bug had bitten me. Having no other inspiring hobbies, I venture forth in putting my sea life into words.

SECUNDERABAD

Chapter 1

Army Quarters in Mudfort

My Father had been transferred to Secunderabad, a family station, hence my Mother, brothers, sisters all shifted there from Coimbatore.. I completed my school education and then joined them a year later for my Pre-University. I secured admission into Secunderabad Arts and Science College on Sarojini Devi Road pretty easily, on the basis of a First Class in school. New friends, new environment and most of all ……. Table tennis and NCC.

My Father had to wait more than a year to be allotted quarters. Till then, we stayed in a rented house close to Kingsway. Having to wait a few months before my College opened, I continued to be the handy man of the house, with "Fetch that - Do This - Wash This" orders from a strict and quick-to-anger Father and an autocratic Mother, my siblings being too young.

When we shifted to our allotted quarters in Mudfort, we found ourselves in a huge house, with a big garden and plenty of rooms. For once, I had a (smaller) room with a bath to myself. The house was so grandiosely spaced that I could not hear Mother’s call to a meal. This was part of the cantonment established by the British, to keep out the French and Tipu Sultan. I was told that Colonel Wellesley – later the Duke of Wellington – stayed in the same bungalow. How far this is true I do not know, as there were no ghosts around, a' la' Hamlet's father.

We were very close to Secunderabad Club – that bastion of British racial superiority, later (supposedly) diluted by memberships given out to the more affluent Indians, more than a decade after independence. We watched from outside the perimeter of the Club, as the Brown Sahibs of that time parodied the British. 15 years after independence, our elite were aping the British …….fast forward to 70 years and we are now aping the Americans.

Meanwhile, a dog attached itself to me – he had been left behind by a neighbor who had gone away on transfer. Menacingly black, slightly smaller than a full grown wolf, in shambles, under nourished. We took a liking to each other and he allowed me to bathe him, in spite of the fears of those around me. He became a part of the family and my very close friend. Probably a military dog, as he would sit stiffly on his haunches at the approach of my Father, and would wag his tail only when my Father looked at him. He would sleep beside my bed and I had to let him out at 5 in the morning. 15 minutes later, he would be running along with me during my morning run of around 10 kilometers into the barren countryside, the run every morning being part of my unrelenting and persistent efforts to improve my table tennis game.

That early morning run was at as fast a pace as I could go, for as long as I could, with short breaks. The sheer exhilaration of it when I used to enter the 'zone', forms part of my cache of memories. It ended every morning at the back door of the kitchen, where my Mother would keep ready a vessel with her own concoction of 'kanji', a rice water based dish - the 'Horlicks' of the less affluent and some left overs for the dog.

I suspect that my dog only pretended to be a vegetarian - we were totally vegetarians - as he would, occasionally, surreptitiously sneak away, vault the compound wall and come back looking sheepish. He was fast, like a streak of black lightning. 2 years later, he was run over by a truck, when I was away in college in Calcutta. The loss was unbearable enough to keep me away from pets for the rest of my life.

One of the books that I read in that corner room was Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. I read it from start to finish in one sitting, finishing at around 3 AM. I couldn’t sleep the next three nights, as small sounds would startle me and the shadow of moving branches flitting through the moonlit windows made me imagine the entrance of Dracula. But ……. I got over it. Subsequent readings of the book, later in life, never evoked the same feeling of dread and fear, as occasioned on the first reading.

Continued in Blog 2, after 2 or̥ 3 days.