pagan idolatry on the fo’c’sle

the Irrawaddy ploughed the sea

ras ke bhare tore nain

The ship was a book of symbols.

The fancy piece astern comprised, among other carved decorations,

a cross and a mitre.

Forward, on the bows, was a sort of devil:

a dragon with a fiery red mouth and twitching tail.

saanvariya pankh ke upar

Cargo discharged, the lascars were set to ‘stripping the ship’:

sending down all her spars and ropes.

She lay alongside of us,

the Babel on board

drowned our voices.

In nothing but their girdles,

the lascars hopped about, chattering like monkeys

showing much dexterity and seamanship.

kalam se likh doongi ras ke bhare tore nain

Every Sunday, crowds came down to the dock

to see this ship.

Amusing to watch the old women with umbrellas

who stood on the quay staring at the lascars,

a species of wild animal at whom they might gaze

as at leopards in the zoo.

o bidesi sainya

One night returning to the ship

noticed a white figure squatting

outside the Dock Gate

one of the lascars smoking

as regulations prohibit this luxury on board his vessel

Struck with the curious fashion of his pipe its odour I inquired

Joggerry he replied, a weed in place of tobacco

kalam se likh doongi

He spoke good English

I sat down by Dattabdool-mans

So instructive his discourse

when we parted I had considerably added

to my stock of knowledge

Godsend a fellow like this

a man from the moon

What he says a revelation

Crusoe himself

among the crowds of

mariners from all the globe.

ab ke saavan ghar aa ja

But this is no place for all the subjects

upon which I and my lascar friend discoursed. I will only give

his account of teak and kayar,

concerning which I was curious.

The ‘sagoon’, as he called the tree which produces the teak,

grows among the mountains of Malabar.

Large quantities are sent to Bombay for shipbuilding. He also

rangaibe ho Raama

spoke of the ‘sissor’, a wood that supplies

‘shin-logs’ or ‘knees’, crooked timbers in the country ships.

The sagoon grows immense, sometimes fifty feet of trunk, three feet through,

before a single bough is put forth. Its leaves

my lascar called

elephants’ ears.

o bidesi sainya

The sagoon resists salt water, insect attacks. My lascar told me

the Irrawaddy was wholly built

by India’s native shipwrights, who, he modestly asserted,

surpassed European artisans.

pankh ke upar kalam se likh doongi

The rigging also of native manufacture: kayar

now getting into use in England and America

ropes rigging mats rugs.

The kayar is made from the rind

of the coconut soaked in water, beaten

with mallets rubbed together into fibres

ho Raama saavan ghar aa ja

Dried in the sun spun like hemp the fibre

makes strong ropes light durable buoyant ropes

good for a ship’s running rigging cables and hawsers

baajuband khul khul jaye