Captain Michael Lander, Miami
From
India to Hindustan
Of course, I am not against
progress. It would be foolish not to admire its seven-league step. What’s
considered a novelty in the morning is commonplace in the evening. A neighbor gives
his dog a collar with a built-in GPS. Now if his dog gets lost; finding it on is a
momentary thing. In general, every new car today comes with a built in GPS.
Input your address coordinates and a voice guides you with instructions
calculated from space, holding your hand through every right and left
turn. Ask any student - where is Peru
located? "Hang on” - he would say – “no problem"- and looks it up on
his iPhone map application.
Yes, modern technology has
automated many of the thought processes - eliminating the need for people to
think and decide. Progress touched not
only all the sciences and technology, but also the structure of the world. Many familiar place names began to disappear,
such as Ceylon, now - Sri Lanka, and Bombay - Mumbai. Not sure about you, but personally for me, an
old sailor, Sri Lanka - is an empty sound.
On the other hand, Ceylon sounds like music. With the sound of this word the smell of
Ceylon tea enters the mind, along with images of the famous tea sail clippers
and the fantastic "Cutty-Sark".
Or Bombay – you can feel the sound of two notes: "Bom-Bay"! It
brings images of its streets swarming with crowds of Hindus, sidewalks settled
with barbers, fakirs, healers, snake charmers, and holy cows lazily lying in
the middles of dusty roads. But already
to this old India, creeps a new name - Hindustan. If the name will legitimize, the great
Kipling, native of Bombay, will probably turn in his London grave. Although I
am an incurable romantic, I do not live in the past. On the contrary, I embrace
modern technology, and enjoy the fruits of computers & electronics. But this is not a substitute for human
memory. A memory - a story made up of individual events. So personally I am an opponent of
geographical renaming. With all due respect to the people of India, I do not
fully share their desire to get rid of the English names, and in this regard, I
am a conservative.
Let’s return to the main subject of our
story. It is well known that sailors
spend most of their time and effort during a voyage fighting the elements. But what you may or may not have heard is
often the main element is the ordinary rodent.
Rats on a ship are a true disaster. After all, for all the years of
sailing till this day, are all the years sailors have had these unpleasant
neighbors. In some navies, sailors received a reward for each destroyed rat –
ranging from a day off on land to a pint of rum. Stringent rules apply in all ports of the
world that require special shields on mooring lines, along with filing a
declaration that that a dead rat has not been discovered on the ship in the
last ten days. Otherwise you'll be taken on anchorage outside the port and
exterminator will be sent for rodent extraction. And here is the praise to science! - Instead
of traps, cunning poisons and other similar filth, a device called
"Typhoon" was invented - an electronic sound vibrator, unheard by the
human ear, but intolerable for rats. The vibrations do not kill rats, but forces
them to run from their places. But there were other ways to combat this
scourge, not even known to many experienced sailors. I wrote about it while captaining a cargo ship
called "Republica" which was built in Japan and sold to Europeans,
where I worked for several years under contract with an international crew. There were many rats on that ship, and we, as
best as we could, lead merciless struggle with them. We got two port
exterminations, and the first few weeks after the deracination were calm, but
then it would start again - squeaking and scuffling brazen in the most
inaccessible and unexpected places.
The only person to
successfully fight the rodents was our Chinese chef. His method was to fry fatty meatballs to the peak
of odor and to stuff into them thin pieces of wound-up steel strings. The rats would eat the ball and the steel
string would unwind inside them, taking their lives immediately. His daily catch was small - one - two rats.
He would come to me and announce in distorted Russian: "Captain! Segondya
odin shtuk, davai rom!” (Captain, one more today, pour the rum!) "- and
would demonstratively drink the rum and throw his catch overboard.
Once, during our travels on
the “Republica”, we arrived at the port of Bombay. I saw our Russian ship "Dimitrov"
docked there, whose captain was my friend Vladimir Chistyakov. That evening we met and, as usual, shared our worldly
affairs. Vladimir brought his ship from Madras and loaded for France. “Republica” was headed to Madras, after
unloading in Bombay, to load copra for delivery to Spain. "By the way,” said Vladimir, handing me a
business card, “if you want to get rid of rats for a long time, for twenty
dollars - this is cheap, reliable, and exotic." Next day our ships parted -
"Dimitrov" - west into Europe, and "Republica" – to the
opposite coast of India to the port of Madras.
After three days of sailing
around India, we arrived Madras. I asked
the marine agent greeting us in the port to contact with rat-catchers from the
business card. An hour later, a Hindu
man dressed in European clothes with black turban and a red dot on the forehead,
came to the ship. We signed a job contract and received written instructions.
The instructions stipulated that in the morning, we should open all the plugs
of the measuring pipes in the cargo holds and storerooms, open all water-impenetrable
doors, grease the sides on all the decks and shields of mooring ropes, open the
doors of all the cabins, and evacuate the crew to the shore. Those unwilling or unable to leave were to
meet on the upper bridge and close the entrance behind them.
Early next morning, two Hindu men
pulled up in an old pickup truck. They dragged two cages of mongoose and two
bags of green snakes onboard. These ware
poisonous green bamboo snakes – “mufiya” – which protect bamboo forests of all
rodents. Seeing this, the still sleepy
crew evacuated the ship so promptly, as if the wind blew them there. The Hindu men lifted the ladder. The Chief mate, the doctor, the boatswain and
I were locked on the upper bridge, from where we watched this circus spectacle.
All “mufya” had their necks tied with
collars that prevented them from swallowing their catches, because once they
eat, they immediately stop hunting. The
men brought the snakes to the pipe openings, into which the snakes vanished
immediately. Half an hour later the
wild squeaking began. Rats were jumping
out of every crevice and crazily running onto the decks where the mongooses were
waiting for them. With a few swift clicks
of the jaw the mongoose gnawed the rats’ necks.
Crazed rodents tried to climb up
the sides, but slid right back onto the decks. This went on for two hours, until the
squeaking quieted down. Then one of the
Hindu men played some odd sounds on a long pipe, while the other deftly removed
the collars off the snakes on deck, giving them a chance to swallow one rat
prior to throwing them back in the bag. Hissing
mongooses with bloody noses climbed into their cells. Then the Hindus piled
nearly a hundred dead rats into bags and rinsed the decks with sea water. All of
us were so moved by this spectacle that boatswain gave each of the Hindu man a
pair of overalls and a beret with the logo of “Republica” and the Chinese cook
gave them a big bowl of highly prized fried snail delicatessen.
We were rid of these nasty
creatures for over a year, until in one of the African ports, they were brought
on board with a cargo of sunflower seed oil cake. Soon
after, my contract ended. Many years
passed until I visited Madras again.
However, this time the ship was new and the snake's services were not
needed ... I would not remember the whole story altogether, but I recently read
that Madras is being renamed Chennai! And with this name, I have no associations or
memories.
Suspecting that the device
"Typhoon" left the Hindu exterminators without work, I can only shrug
my shoulders. This is, after all, in
step with progress. However, with regard
to names of places, I remain a staunch conservative. Reminded of the Indian guest's aria in the
opera “Sadko” - "In far-away India, a country of miracles ...” - one can’t
help but wonder… will we replace India with Hindustan? It doesn’t quite sing to the ear the same way…
