‘All I desired was to escape at all costs’: An author-activist recalls his first days in Mumbai

It was 2005. I was 20 years old. I was growing up, lost, without any idea of the work or studies I wanted to pursue. But there was a growing sense, a voice inside my head as if it was shouting: escape. I started searching for options. One day I went to an internet cafe to search for an option for a career and a field of study. I was always fascinated by the idea of leaving home, to go outside and make my own life. But there was simply no one to tell me how. On the wall of an internet cafe, I saw an advertisement printed on plain white paper. It said: Join Merchant Navy & Sail Around The World. I jotted down the number given with this advertisement. I phoned the number. I was told to come over to the office.

It was a home and not an office that I saw when I reached there the next day. The man introduced himself as an officer from a merchant ship, now on vacation. He must have been in his early 30s and appeared to me a secretive man, hiding behind his covert knowledge about sea life. He claimed that he wanted to help young people join the merchant navy. He told me thrilling tales about ships, voyages, sea travels, and the money crew members earn on ships. Everything sounded impressive. It sounded like the idea of life I wanted to live. Little did I know that it was not as easy as it sounded for people like me. In fact, it was difficult from the beginning. Money was the first difficulty.

He said that to complete the course from a marine academy, I had to pay about Rs 60,000. His commission was 10 per cent. He was one of those agents across India who got young boys admitted into such marine academies and earned commissions from it. They had unwritten pacts with the academies. These agents sold alluring dreams of being seafarers to young boys and then abruptly cut themselves loose from this dream. It was a huge network of marine academies, agents and candidates. I discovered this when after finishing the course I tried a few times and visited offices in Mumbai that provide marine jobs, only to discover that to find a decent job in this field, you either need connections or money to begin with. I knew nothing of it then, as I was living in the negation of truth. All I desired was escape at all costs.

Asking my father for the money was out of the question. He was not in the least interested in my career and hardly aware of what I was studying or doing. So I asked my mother. ‘Sixty thousand!’ she said in a voice that filled with worry and anxiety – worried because she never had that money and anxious because she was thinking that because of the lack of money, I may never be able to pursue the training at the marine academy.

After 15 years today, if I imagine her expression in that moment, the moment which seized her face with worry and fear, I feel guilty. I was blinded by selfishness. I was persistent and pressured her emotionally. So she borrowed the money from a Dalit woman from our basti who used to lend money at 10 per cent interest. 10 per cent monthly of 60,000 was 6000. Even the interest amount was huge. Nevertheless, my mother borrowed the money for a period of six months. The course at the marine academy was for three months. I was putting her into a big financial burden, but I was barely conscious of it. I was living the fantasy that after the course, employment in the merchant navy would pay huge amounts. And the more fascinating idea than this was the thought of getting away from home.

In the winter of that year, I booked a train ticket for Mumbai. My training at the marine academy was to begin two days after I reached there. My mother could hardly afford any extra money. So I had a demand draft for the fees and enough money to travel to the academy once I reached Mumbai. I did not have a single rupee extra. I did not dare to ask my mother. It was my first time in Mumbai, and the very idea of the city, constructed in my mind by Bollywood movies and tales from people who had been there, kept me excited until I reached there.

The agent who arranged my admission there instructed me about the routes of buses and local trains to reach the academy. It was situated in CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai. He said that from Thane, there was a direct bus to CBD Belapur. I followed his instructions. When the train left Nagpur, I was excited and equally scared to think of what was lying ahead. As the night advanced, the chilly winds furtively invaded the compartment through gaps in the windows and doors. As the train moved ahead, one world was disappearing behind me. I was reaching closer to another world I had never seen, the world in which I would be alone, the world in which I desperately wanted to lose myself.

BP Marine Academy was a ten-storey building. To my eyes, it felt like an unimaginably huge structure because it was the first time I was entering such a building. Some floors had administrative offices; other floors were classrooms and hostels; there was a huge terrace which had a cafeteria similar to the structure of a lighthouse. The interior of the building was designed like that of a ship. Walking across it for the first time, the building felt like a ship. The day I entered the building, I did not know that it was only after four months that I would exit it.

On the day when training began, we were allotted hostel rooms, beds and uniforms and given instructions that were meant to be followed strictly. Candidates were allowed two day-time holidays in a month, on Sunday. I was not privileged to enjoy those two holidays, because I simply did not have the money to travel or spend on anything. My course here was on saloon rating.

It was a training associated with kitchen tasks on the ship. In the classroom, we were taught recipes, about the functions of the onboard kitchen, the responsibilities of a saloon cadet etc. For most of the course, we were taught recipes and the etiquette of the merchant life. Here, etiquette mostly meant following the rules, protocols, and maintaining discipline on the ship. We were also taught about the methods of cutting the vegetables and meat, how to use utensils carefully and how to be alert all the time, because, as they said, life on a ship is a life of alertness. Only once did we get to cook in the kitchen, towards the end of the course. Each day was scheduled in the academy. We awoke at 5.30
am, and reported at 6.30 am. Apart from 45 minutes of physical training, we had six hours of classes, punctuated by specific timings for tea, meals and rest. Muster time was at 7.30 pm, when all the cadets came together to start with their physical training for the day. We went to bed at 10 pm. Except Sunday, each day was defined by this rigid schedule. Everyone had formed their groups on the basis of their linguistic identity or their class, their social status. There was an invisible wall between them and me, which stopped me from being seen and heard. And it was the same wall which prohibited me from entering their world.

For me, Sunday was timeless, like eternity. On Sundays, while all the others went out to explore the city, to roam around, to eat at restaurants and watch movies, I was there waiting for Monday so I could camouflage my loneliness amidst the noise of people who made me invisible. I was there, but I was simply nobody, probably because I did not have the privilege of language or smartness or boldness which the better-off and dominant-caste boys there had. They spoke loudly and were physically well-built. They called it being tough. Almost all of them came here with a legacy of having someone from their family in the merchant navy. They knew the profession, they had the money and they knew someone who could help them get a job on a ship. I had none of that. As the days passed, I became more conscious of this fact. Here, only the clock kept me busy from the hurt of being excluded.

There was no female candidate in the academy when I was there. It was a man’s world. Boys from all linguistic backgrounds and majorly from the dominant castes were there. Their confidence, affluent clothes and gadgets reflected their background. There seemed to be nothing called “caste” here. And yet, it was at the very root of the social fabric all around me in the academy. We were all aspiring seafarers. And we needed to be tough, physically and mentally. To be mentally tough here was
to tolerate and ignore curses and abuse from the seniors – these were part of sea life, we often heard from instructors.

Excerpted with permission from Water in a Broken Pot: A Memoir, Yogesh Maitreya, Penguin India.