When I joined as a 4th Engineer.

During my college days my professors emphasized on the importance of taking proper rounds in engine room & that too when you become a responsible watch keeping engineer on-board ship. I used to hear sincerely their experiences about how they noticed a slight variation in the performance of the machines by just putting their palm face onto the machine exposed surface. And sometimes they boasted about averting some of the major accidents because they noticed the fault at much earlier stage & took proper action to tame the severity.
So all these stuffs from my professors had made a permanent impression on my mind & I concluded that it would be prudent to take rounds by feeling machinery and looking after all parameters. One most important thing on my mind was that I would become a hero on ship if I manage to be  the reason for averting a mishap or any accident or any major breakdown because I noticed the thing on time and prevented its occurrence.
Now I have joined the ship with all those ambitions in my mind and a promise to prove myself a worthy one for watch keeping.
But later on I found out I have to prove to no one, it’s just the ship that you have to run at any cost & nothing else.

Time 19:45
Today is my 1st day as 4th engineer & I have come to engine room well before the time at which my watch begins. It’s mentioned in the company’s SMS manual that the relieving watch keeper should come to engine room well  at least 15 minutes before commencement of his watch timing so that the handing taking over would be easy. I was there to relieve my 2nd engineer.

‘’ chaar saab is here.” said the 2nd saab to paanchu when he noticed me roaming around the purifier room. I could see both of them in ECR waiting to be relieved.

I have taken a quick round of 20 minutes for the sake of familiarization with the engine room but the fact is you can’t even familiarize yourself with the whole of the engine room till the end of your contract. It’s vast, consisting hell lot of machinery & a never ending mess of complicated pipelines. The most arduous yet compulsory job on a ship, if you have joined on-board as a 5th engineer, is of pipeline tracing. It may make you feel depressed & sometimes you can hear a voice from your inner self, “what are you doing man? Were you put on this earth to solve the mystery of pipelines? You are a looser not to get a job on shore.” And in the fit of frustration you throw away the sketches you have drawn on a piece of paper while tracing valves and pipelines and you sit bellow a blower to get some fresh air in order to soothe away the pain inflicted on you with those golden words from your disturbed inner self. And I had gone through this ordeal few months back when I was a 5th engineer. But now I am a 4th engineer having ‘COC’ stamped with “UNLIMITED POWER”.   
‘’Good evening 2nd saab.” I greeted 2nd engineer in a very humble manner while entering in the ECR & looked at the clock, showing 20:05.
“Good evening...Good evening...So you had your dinner?” asked 2nd in a very caring manner.
“Yes sir. I had it at 18:30.”
“So today is your 1st day in engine room as a responsible engineer. Are you confident enough to carry out watch?” he asked, concerning about my abilities to take care of engine room for the next 4 hours.
“Yes sir...I am capable of.” I replied in a way a soldier shows his confidence when his officer asks him whether he fears his death when proceeding for a war. Soldier will always say, “No, I don’t”, but the fact is nobody on this earth wants to die foolishly & the soldier is not an exception. Same was the case here with me. Though I was not going to die but I was not confident about doing watch on my own. I feared what if some alarm comes and what action to take at that time. But I put a brave face & oozed fake confidence.
“Good...so you are from which college?”   He asked in a way to judge me because people have the bad habit of making perception about technical knowledge a person has by knowing about the college from where he has passed. If the college is well famous then the person is understood to be a knowledgeable one but if the college has never been in limelight then that person is understood to be a mediocre or at worst a stupid one.
“M.E.R.I Kolkata!” I said promptly.
“Okay... Is there any other marine college in Kolkata...What’s the name...Yeah...I could remember...D.E.M.T..?”He asked after struggling for a while to recall the name.
“Sir...That’s D.M.E.T..!” I answered his query and rectified the name he spoke of earlier.
“Whatever is the name, I have heard a lot about this college. Have you ever been to the campus of D.M.E.T..? ” He asked curiously and with the corrected name.
“Actually sir...”I just started to speak then only an alarm came and our attention got diverted to the alarm flashing on the computer screen.
“Oh that’s of bilge well. Nothing to worry about.” 2nd said and instructed paanchu to take care of that and also to look out for any leakages.
As on every ship “paanchu” is considered as the Bilge master and has been universally appointed as a CEO of Bilge department, Marine shipping Industry. This alarm has reminded me of my days of “Paanchuhood”.
“Yeah where were we...You were saying something..?” 2nd came again to our conversation while paanchu left ECR for attending to the bilges.
“Sir I was saying that I am from D.M.E.T only, few years back its name was changed to M.E.R.I” I said in a single breath.
“You are a D.M.E.T guy?” He asked with his eyes went broad.
“Yes sir.” I confirmed. He looked surprised.
“So what are you doing here in SCI?” He asked like a resident of earth would ask to an alien when he sees him landing on the earth surface.
“I can’t get you.” I said with a remark on my face which sought to say, “Will you please elaborate the words you just uttered?”
“I mean you people mostly join foreign companies. I have never seen a guy from your college in SCI for so long. You DMETians have got a brand value in the marine engineering field & you can’t afford to work for the companies like SCI.” He explained why did he say so & wanted a justification from me.
“It’s love for money.” I said after a while with a tone projecting myself as an avarice chap.
“Yeah I forgot that now day’s junior engineers in SCI are the best paid as compared to those working in other shipping companies.” He said while looking at the Paanchu who has just entered the ECR after attending to the bilges. “Look at him...This bugger is making around Rs 75,000 pm and for the sake of working he only engages himself in odd jobs like bilge transfers & nothing productive. He is really having a very nice time here.” Jealous 2nd stared Paanchu as a convict & ordered him to go out and take round in the steering gear room. 2nd had got a reason to be jealous because when he was a 5th engineer he was getting around 1/5th of the amount of money that Paanchu is getting today.
Paanchu stared at the ECR clock which was showing 20:25. He has already gone late and was not willing to be in the engine room for even a minute extra. He stared at 2nd & continued to stare him for half a minute. He wanted to say something but refrained himself from uttering anything. But I could hear clearly what actually he wanted to say because I had been a Paanchu some months back before registering myself for the vicious cycle of Class 4 in MMD Kolkata.
 He was saying “you Fucker...Why do you bother about my salary...? tere baap ke account se paise nahi milte mujhe..!”
Annoyed Paanchu left the ECR with a banging noise of door behind him. 2nd had also noticed that anger within Paanchu.
“You saw him? He hasn’t got any respect for his seniors…with this rebel attitude he is not going to make a long career in this marine field.” A visionary 2nd delivered his finding that the Paanchu would be having insecure career in future.
“Yeah I could also see that.” I just made an affirmation to his point of view.
“So tell me chaar saab where are you from?” He got diverted from the topics related to my college or Paanchu.
“I am from Bihar, sir.”
“Lots of people from Bihar are coming in this field now days, on my last ship out of 28 crew members 11 were from Bihar only, what’s the reason?” He asked, counting the numbers on his fingers of right hand.
“Nothing specific …I think they are lured by the various luxury offered by this field to them-Travelling in plane, visiting all the ports around the world, handsome money, etc.” I explained & he seemed quite convinced.
“Hmmm… that’s right... are you married chaar saab?” He came again with a question.
To me it seemed that he was obsessed with asking questions. Every time I answered, he came again with the questions irrelevant to the running of the ship or anything related to the engine room machineries. He wanted to know every bit of me. And I being a DMETian had increased his curiosity in myself. Though later I realized he was not obsessed. He was natural at asking questions because he was serving on the ship for the last 8 months and had always seen the same old faces on the ship for all these months. For him I was the change. He wanted to get assimilated to this change in every possible way.
“No… Not married yet, sir!” I answered, expecting another question from him.
"Why? Are your parents not interested in getting you married or is there scarcity of beautiful girls whom parents could afford to pay a hefty amount of dowry for a groom like you?" He asked, mentioning he had heard of Dowry system still prevalent in Bihar on big scale.
I didn’t know what to answer to his absurd question so I thought of giving an absurd answer too.
"Actually sir...you have heard it right...Dowry is the main issue...it's not that they have no money...the reason is they are not willing to buy a mariner groom as they have seen that episode telecasted on TV show 'Face the truth' where a mariner has confessed to have consorted with prostitutes around the world when his ship visited those ports...and from then onwards the price tag of mariners has gone down considering them as of loose characters." I explained him to satisfy his quest of knowing me.
''I see...then I am lucky to get married before telecast of this show." He said and burst into laughter on his own PJ which I didn’t find funny. Before I could respond to his PJ with a fake smile he was back with another question.
"Don't you have any girlfriend?" He asked casually and didn’t even bother to wait for my reply before he advised me," You should marry her, but you have to compromise with the money that you could get otherwise in dowry."
Though I was losing interest in talking so openly with him, but the sheer mention of the word girlfriend has taken me back down my memory lane which reminded me of someone.  I wanted to be lost in that thought for a while but then I was interrupted by the banging noise of the door in between. This time Paanchu was back in ECR after taking round from the steering gear room. He was completely drenched with sweat as temperature of Engine room was around 48 degree Celsius.
"So how is everything out there in SG room?" 2nd hurled this to Paanchu who was staring at the clock which showed 21:30.
"Don't worry; this ship is not going to sink because of steering failure. By the way system there is as fit as a fiddle. And if you have more doubt about it then go and check by yourself." Paanchu answered aggressively with a pinch of disobedience in his tone.
2nd was taken aback by the way Paanchu had replied but he kept mum and tried to ignore him. Silence prevailed for some time, then it remained for some time, and finally it had attained eternity. No one was talking. I thanked god to send Paanchu in between to make a halt out of my torturous conversation with 2nd.
 But silence is always dumb when it comes after a lot of chit chat so I broke it and uttered."Sir...can you please give me some idea about the machineries which require special attention in the watch or that has caused much trouble in past?"
"Oh yes...I was just coming to that part...I have made a list of some alarms which usually come and action to be taken if there comes any. Along with that there is also kept the checklists of various machineries which will help you in dealing with them." He said, indicating me to open a drawer of the desk kept beside me. At last I saw him coming to the relevant topic.
I pulled out the drawer to find some pages where it was mentioned what he was talking about. I started going through the contents that were written there. On seeing me deeply submerged in the pages he said, “Don’t worry chaar saab...I have shifted the most experienced oiler to your watch. He has the idea of most of the engine room. He will take care of most of the things. And if any problem persists feel free to call me in my cabin." He assured me.
"Okay sir." I nodded and kept those notes for future reference.