For a change I read my own blog right from the beginning. Now I am in a reminiscent mood.

This one is my favourite and me thinks my best improvement of the blank paper.

http://nautiluschronicles.blogspot.com/2009/05/25.html

25.07.2010.

Loneliness is ominous at midnight.

Hope is a dead letter.

The clocks stopped... they refuse to go on without.

The moments tick… unrelenting.

The face etched in stone... masks impassive dread.

The macabre silence swirls twirls mocks his unsaid.

The shadows – covetous, lurk beyond reach… waiting, watching… will he die this night.

04.07.2010.

It is a beautiful day… clear, cold, crisp and windy. I stood all morning on the bridge wings. I haven’t cut my hair in five months. It was beautiful standing there listening to my favourite songs with the strong breeze playing the fool with my unruly hair. A Camus quote comes to my mind – ‘But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.’ I am in absolute harmony with my life on beautiful days like this when I stand on the wings, look around me and see nothing but nothingness. Or moonlit nights at sea when the night is my lonely princess, the coltish grace of moonlight on the rippling water her bejewelled ornaments, her hair the soft shadows the clouds cast and the gentle breeze on my face her beckoning song.

12.06.2010.

Two more lousy ports in Japan later I am at sea again. Yes the windmill of fate turns in favour atlast. I am on my way to either Argentina or Brazil or both, bunkering and taking supplies enroute from Singapore and then on to Amsterdam. I’ve ordered a few tins of rasogolla’s and chocolates to brighten things up. Yeah nothing livens up my life like good food. Life otherwise is routine. I try and write every now and then but it seems I don’t have much to write these days. Almost everything that trickles out looks frighteningly similar to something or the other that I’ve already written.

At this point Nimo goes blank. He sits there staring at the computer for a while. He then gets up, takes out the bottle of fine Glenfiddich he bought in the last port, pours himself a dram and proceeds to listen to BB King sing “Rock me baby… rock me all night long.”

End of transmission.

Over and out.

30.05.2010.

A neighbour’s father had passed away. We were at the crematorium in south Calcutta waiting in line. The corpse of a woman of about twenty to twenty three years of age lay on one side. Two young children, a boy and girl and an old man sat next to the corpse. One gentleman from our troupe with boredom and curiosity on his side came back with their sad story. The woman hit by a bus on the eastern metropolitan bypass had died on spot and had been lying in a government morgue for the past five days while her hapless family tried to arrange the money for her cremation. Finally they got the money but were unaware of the municipality charges for issuing the death certificate. So while the hapless father of the woman waited with her children the husband had gone off trying to arrange that paltry sum. I remember their faces. The children uncomprehending, probably hungry… they had lost their mother and were too young to grasp the rest. The father hollow and resigned, he had probably seen life get the better of them way too many a time. I noticed they were not in line. Time meant nothing to them. They didn’t know when or if the money will arrive. I didn’t have enough money that would put an end to their misery but I wore a gold chain that might have. I had this mad urge to give them the chain but I didn’t. I was scared my Mother and Aunt won’t understand or even if they did they would consider it an excess considering our middleclass existence. Fast forward to this day and this man… I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care about consequences. I would give away anything I have that I think might help. And that is my point. I don’t care anymore. I do not care about anything anymore.

And sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

02.05.2010.

I really must stop writing on bits of scrap paper. I purchased a chic writing pad and hope this strategic move will lead to writing regularly again. The inspiration was the wad of scrap paper trying to gather dust (cleanliness freaks do not allow dust to settle) on my desk. They were to metamorphose into posts. They didn’t.

I did a number of ports in the last two months, most of them in Japan. I hate coming to Japan. The basic needs of a sailor after landfall are never met in Japan. Phone is as expensive as the satellite phone onboard. Columbus I’m sure found it easier to find India than finding internet cafes in Japan and Nippon cuisine seriously doesn’t excite me. The other two ports were in Newzealand. Bluff well past 47° south and situated on the southernmost tip of the south island is a tiny forgotten hamlet. I loved Bluff. Life in Bluff can’t just be called idyllic. It is more like time come to a standstill. A few hours after berthing I was off in search of good food and internet, armed with some local humint from the rather old British draft surveyor who spoke incessantly. I was to find the Golden Age Tavern that served the freshest blue cod on the coast and ‘The Bluff Lodge’ – the only place in town with net access. The walk to town was refreshing. The road lined with low single storied bungalows with garden patches in front and large sea facing windows, the elderly couples who smiled warmly at a stranger, kids catching clams on the wharf, the lady who sat on the pavement outside her dairy and was spinning a merry yarn from lamb wool… it felt as if I was transported to another time altogether. But more pleasant surprises were in store. I found the Bluff Lodge on a crossing near town centre. I pushed open the huge doors and stood in a lobby with nothing but a piece of paper with an arrow pointing towards another door on the left. Beyond that door I found a small waiting area with a TV, DVD player and loads of DVD’s. There was an office across another glass door as deserted as the lobby and the echoes of my booming “anybody in” confirmed it. Next to a spiral staircase I noticed another piece of paper with an arrow pointing upstairs. I gingerly went up to find myself in a hall next to which was a library/lounge with a CRT monitor/computer and a few more rooms down the hallway – all unlocked, wide open, no keys, no locks… no nothing!! I was about to leave when I noticed on the wall a blackboard on which someone had written with chalk – “Just gone for a walk, back before 4.” It was 13:30 in the afternoon!! A bit bewildered I left hurriedly, had a melt in the mouth fresh blue cod meal at the GoldenAge Tavern washed down with fine draught beer before returning to the Bluff Lodge. Back up the stairs I found a smiling gentleman who in response to my question about leaving the place unlocked said – “Uh we are sort of trusting around here… don’t lock ‘em very often.” I wish I lived in Bluff. The last surprise came an hour before we sailed. The British draft surveyor came with gifts… a bottle of wine for us officers and a small stamp collection for the cadet. He said – “A small present for bearing with my incessant chatter. You see I was in the British navy during the Falklands war and served a long prison sentence. I know the meaning of silence.”