🚢 Embarking on a Shipping Career

Blogger Note: When I was a child, I called him Mama Ship! So, where did his journey begin?

From Biswajit Basu:

I cannot remember my first ship as we had to go regularly for training on them from college.

My first ship as a designated Junior Engineer and the first ship of my professional career was the Jalavijaya of Scindia Steam Navigation Ltd which was a blatant misnomer because when I joined, Scindia had no steamships - only motor vessels (ie diesel driven and not steam driven).  

(Picture from ShipSpotting.com)

There was no interview but all good companies made a pitch for the boys as the institution was elite. But my mind was already made up. I would join Scindia's because 

- a) when I went on board doing our college days, we had access to the menus (issued everyday for the officers for  each of the 3 meals) and they sounded the best. (we were not even entitled to the leftovers). Especially intriguing was a dish called "Bubble & Squeak" which turned up in the menu once in a while. (Very disappointingly, it turned out to be a kind of vegetable mish mash-my first disappointment after joining ship)

 - b) During the war years Daddy was posted on Scindia ships as Medical Officer during the evacuation of Singapore before it was overrun by the Japanese Imperial Army.  (Later Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose started the INA here-there is a memorial on Marina Beach now; very reluctantly allowed by the Singapore Government after the British had razed the original INA  memorial there - Mimi (Swati Basu) has our photos at the new memorial).

My first trip was to Russia in the end of 1970.  We were carrying a cargo mainly of half inch round steel bars, hides and canned mango juice and slices).  Our carriage of hides was most fortunate (as it turned out after arrival).

I will describe our voyage in another blog post as it was pretty eventful and deserves a more detailed description by itself and also our stays at Odessa & Illyichevsk before our return, again round the Cape. Egypt & Britain decided to fight again as the Ottomans and Britain had done earlier in the mid fifties. 

But that is a story for another day. 

Post Script from Monisha Choudhury:

The first thing Dada made when he was gifted a huge expensive gift from our rich neighbour Mr Kejriwal in Bangalore. It was a metal Meccano set in green and red, like the Lego now a days. What he built completely was a ship. I guess that was in in Subconscious mind since 1959! Anyway that was the only completed piece he ever made as far as I remember. He dismantled everything and never got to put them back including Mas prized button operated sewing machine many years later in Hauz Khas. I remember because by then I used it too!

Biswajit Basu response to the above postscript: 

I never dismantled it. It simply vanished!