I have already given you a post about pussy-cats, viz, ‘Pussy-Cat, Pussy-Cat, Where Have You Been?‘ Hence, let me tell you one about rats too.
Sooner or later we had to come to the innovativeness of this species on earth that is so curious that it is almost enigmatic. Away from the hills and plains, it makes its home at sea and learns to live there with hardly any means of subsistence. At times when the sea is rough, it wretches out its guts until there is nothing more to bring out; and yet, if you ask it its favourite place, it would unerringly point a resolute finger towards the seas, the oceans and beyond.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about The Sailor. The most innovative of this species is the Indian Naval Sailor. He finds a way where none exists!
To cement your realization of this fact, I must tell you about this incident in the year 1976 during the Monsoons. I had just got my watch-keeping ticket on INS Himgiri and suddenly realized that the whole world was waiting for me to finish my under-trainee watch-keeping phase. One of the “whole world” was officiating CO Betwa; who realized that his CO and many of his watch-keeping officers were on leave, when Betwa had to sail for a prolonged sailing called MONEX (Monsoon Exercise). He requested my CO and my CO, always ready to oblige, dispatched me to him for the duration of the MONEX.
It was the toughest sailing I have done. At the dining table, because of constant rolling and pitching, your plates and cutlery would go from one side of the table to the other and you had to wait for your plate to return it to you with the next rolling and pitching. Even at that you had to carefully look at what you were eating; for, if the quantity of gravy in your meat had become more than earlier, chances were that in its journey on the table, someone would have puked in the plate.
Many people never got out of their cabins, lest we should all see the changed colours of their faces.
The officiating CO (actually the XO of the ship) was man of steel and good humour. Rolling and pitching and even cork-screw motions had as much effect on him as water on a duck’s back. He devised ways and means of letting the ship’s company see the humour in those trying conditions. For the officers, he had an interesting story book, in which men and women did many naughty things. He took out the pages of the book and distributed these between the officers. So the trick was to come to the end of the page, when, for example, things were hotting up between a character called Jack and another called Julie and then figure out who would have the next page!
For the sailors too he devised another game. Since, in a cat and mice game, the officers had got the cat end, the sailors had to be content with the mice game. Through the medium of daily orders he announced that anyone catching a mouse would be rewarded with a prize of Five Rupees (which wasn’t peanuts during those days).
Topass (sweeper) First Class Pillai caught the first mouse and was promptly given Rupees Five. For the next few days, we noticed that at about five in the evening, he’d bring a freshly killed rat and collect his Five Rupees and go.
On the fifth day, the XO got suspicious and sent his best spy after Pillai to see if he could…..well, smell the rat.
This super-spy discreetly followed Pillai and half an hour later reported the story to XO and it speaks volumes for the innovativeness of Pillai.
The story was that whilst the XO expected that Pillai would go straight out of his cabin to the ship’s side and get rid of the bandicoot, Pillai took it straight to his mess where a plastic bag awaited him. He packed the rat nicely into the plastic and then in a paper bag and then deposited it in the freezer in the galley. This would now be taken out about 30-45 minutes before going to XO next evening, thawed and readied as a freshly killed rat.
Finding a freshly killed rat, therefore, for Pillai, was less trying than for all of us trying to find the next page about what Jack did to Julie.
Hilarious indeed .The predicament at sea during monsoons is factual and wittingly described
Thank you, Sir. In the fine service, Indian Navy, that we were privileged to be part of, there was always humour galore. Regards.
nice stories
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