🛍 Of Pursers and Radio Officers

By Biswajit Basu:

On a ship, the three broad professions are Deck, Engine & Catering. Anyone not in these catogories is considered eccentric if not downright insane. Two such people on the ship are the Purser and the Radio Officer.

Let me tell you stories of two Pursers I have sailed with.  One was Bijon Bannerjee.

Bijonda was a dimunitive chap.  You would swear he was a dwarf had he not been so handsome!  Now Bijonda, after his accounting and paperwork was over had time on his hands.  Likewise with me as the Junior Engineer with perpetual night duty, I was free  to go out during the day while in port while everyone else worked.  Everyone, that is, except for the Purser who would have finished his paperwork and port formalities.  This meant that the Junior Engineer and Pursers were free to go out to a restaurant or shopping during the day.

So it was with Bijonda and I. We would often go or together in various United States Ports for shopping.  This we normally did at superstores like Walmart, JC Penneys etc. Soon we got bored of following each other around and, as suggested by Bijonda, we would loaf around invidually in the departments of our choice and meet again at a fixed time at a fixed place.

This worked beautifully. Till such time that in one store I finished early and decided to join him wherever he was. I finally spotted him in the children's department diligently inspecting some clothes and oblivious to the world around him.  I found this rather intriguing because he had just been married and had no children. Even more intriguing was the fact that he was looking at  clothes for older boys.  For a moment I thought he was buying something for a relative.  But suddenly I saw him enter the trial room and matters became clear. I cornered him back on board where he sheepishly admitted that the smallest US size in the men's clothing  was too large  for him and he had to do his shopping in the children's department! 😊

Pursers and shopping reminds me of the story of Bardoliwalla our Parsi purser.  One day, just before arrival Bombay, I went to his cabin for a chat.  I found new men and women's clothes strewn all around and he was doing something with them.  I noticed he was removing the price tags and the SALE tags.  My heart warmed for him thinking that he was doing so with the intention of gifting them to his relatives.  So I told him so and he said they were indeed gifts.  Then he started putting back the price stickers and I found that funny and told him so.  You can depend on a Parsi for being totally honest.  He said that the stickers he was putting back were of a higher price than the original. Thus, he said two things could happen 1) the recipient (his relative) would accept it as a gift and would be very happy that Bardoliwalla had bought him/her a very expensive gift and 2) The recipient would insist on paying him and then he would be at a profit which would cover his purchases that were accepted as gifts! Talk of Parsis being money minded!

Well, talking of money-minded Parsis, here is one Bardoliwalla told me himself.

Bardoliwalla's wife was a classmate of Mrs Sumati Morarjee, our Chairperson.  Bardoliwalla told me he would dread the day that his wife would announce that Sumati ji had invited them for tea.  I found this funny.  Why should he dread the occasion that Sumati ji would invite her classmate and her husband who was an employee?  I was surprised and told him so.  He said Basu...you bengalis will never understand, I would spend Rs 5/- (in those days) as taxi fare for Rs2/- worth biscuits and tea but the dreaded moment would come when she would call her driver, Narayan, and ask him to drop us home.  So what was so dreadful about that, I countered.  "Abbay Gadhera", he said.  If I took a taxi home it would cost me Rs. 5/-.  Now I have to tip Narayan 10 bucks!