05/07/2026
After a long time, three or four of your letters and messages about meeting suddenly arrived. I thought I would pass by you in Sanghar before going abroad. My plan was that after the exams I would take leave from everyone and then go abroad. But the moment I reached Hyderabad, I got word to report to the ship. Without saying goodbye to anyone, I came and boarded the ship. That very day two more letters of yours arrived. (Lest your work has come to a standstill and you are writing letters out of sheer free time. But I am sure that is not so, because as you say, as long as vegetable ghee lasts, the long line of patients will never end, and doctors will always be busy.) Anyway, your sincerity is commendable. I could not write to you from Karachi; now I am writing from the sea.
At present our ship is heading for Chittagong. From there we will go straight to America. On the way we will also stop for some time at Mombasa (Africa), Las Palmas, and Port Louis. On the return we will come back via European countries such as England, France, Poland, Greece, and Germany.
Our ship is quite large. The accommodation is fully air-conditioned. It is a cargo ship, but there are a few cabins for passengers too, for which they have to pay two or three times the airfare. That is why most of the people on board are the crew that runs the ship. I am traveling in the capacity of a marine engineer. Besides me there are eight other engineers, including one chief engineer. The whole ship is like a city which not only has to be kept running continuously, but there are generator machinery for electricity, an air-conditioning plant for cooling, an evaporator for making fresh water from seawater, boilers, pumps, condensers, coolers, filters, purifiers for cleaning oil to make it fit for burning in the engine, and many other machines whose maintenance is our responsibility.
Finding the way in mid-ocean, storing the cargo carefully, and so on, are the responsibilities of the deck officers, which include the ship’s captain, chief officer, down to the cadets. Besides them, the doctor, radio officer, electrical engineer, butler, purser, carpenter, cook, servants, fitters, oilmen, etc., etc., each has an important place of his own.
Our ship weighed anchor from Karachi at six o’clock on Monday evening. On ships of every country in the world, the twenty-four hours are divided into three duties, called a watch. Each person has to do four hours of duty by day and four hours by night. Some do duty from eight to twelve (the same hours at night), others from twelve to four, and the third from four to eight. The chief engineer’s duty time is not fixed; he is only called for advice in an emergency. We do duty from twelve to four. That watch is considered the hardest, because that time, whether day or night, is the time for sleep.
I finished my duty at four in the evening, made the engine fully ready to run, had dinner, and went to sleep. At that time there was a lot of noise and bustle of people on shore. Laborers were loading cargo. Children, women, and men who had come to say farewell to those departing were wandering here and there. Besides that, customs officials, port authorities, people from our head office, and police were moving about. It was like a fair. We who were going on the ship were not even a hundred people in all, but those who had come to see us off were in the thousands. Our ship’s rooms are such that if you close them and draw the curtains, it becomes dark and you cannot tell whether it is day or night outside. That is why those on night duty can sleep easily during the day.
At this moment I have woken up. It is ten o’clock at night and I am addressing you. There is complete silence on the ship. Only the sound of the ship’s engines and the waves of the sea can be heard. All around there is sea and nothing but sea. The boundless ocean — perhaps Shah Latif said for this sea:
“Serve the ocean, where the current spreads its net,
In its depths flow hundreds of rubies, pearls, and red gems,
If you can gather even a fistful of wealth,
You will become full, O worshipper.”
We have left Karachi far behind, so much so that not even a light is visible. By chance, many officers on this ship are my old college friends. I will write about their amusing talk in another letter.
At this time our ship is reaching the open sea. The further the ship comes into the open sea, the more the rolling is felt. Huge waves are crashing against the ship. Small ships and boats cannot come this far, so they usually keep to the shore. Our ship is huge. Yet even so, compared to such a sea, it feels like a light husk. Sea sickness, which comes from the ship’s rolling and the sea’s turbulence, causes vomiting and dizziness; it has not happened yet, but perhaps it will happen to everyone when we reach near Bombay, because from there to Colombo, in the Bay of Bengal, I hear the water is very rough. At present our ship is heading toward Colombo (Ceylon). After that it will turn north toward Chittagong. It will not stop at Colombo on the way and will drop anchor directly at Chittagong on the seventh day. Our ship has good speed; otherwise other ships take ten to fifteen days to reach. I will post this letter to you upon reaching Chittagong. Around the twelfth of October we will bid farewell to Chittagong and depart for America. On the way we will take on oil at Mombasa (Africa). I hear that we will also stop for a few days on business at Jeddah and other places. You keep writing to me at the Karachi address. Wherever my ship is in port, the people in Karachi will forward all the letters there. Well, friend, it is about to be twelve o’clock at night and I have to take charge of the ship’s engine until four o’clock. I will write more after that.
——— With much love
(Excerpt: Arabian Sea, 23 September 1968 – _Muhnjo Sagar Muhnjo Sahil_)
