Sinbad’s Daughters

The scepticism is not surprising. Commercial shipping, after all, is a man’s world. It’s been only six years since India’s first woman marine engineer passed out of a Kolkata institute and walked into the Merchant Navy. Now, more and more women are falling in love with “the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking” and following in Sonali Banerjee’s footsteps.

Six years is too little time for a sea change. But it’s enough to convert many sceptics. “If the guys do 50 push-ups, the girls do the same. They live under the same roof—there’s a separate wing for women in the boys’ hostel—and there’s little substance to charges that girls can’t do what the men can,” says Captain R.Razdan, provost of the institute.

Conventions, they are-a-changing. None of the women students is from a shipping background. But their families have not baulked from shelling out the steep fees (Tolani charges Rs 1.7 lakh per year for the four-year marine engineering course). The returns are attractive enough. Merchant navies are the backbone of international trade. Commercial shipping hasn’t seen a recession for the last 20 years. Monthly salaries start from $500 and climb up to $6,000-7,000 (for captains.) The income is not taxable. But the growing fleet of women seafarers is the index of a larger change: the middle class is not just accepting the ambition that drives women to compete for lucrative, desk-bound careers; it’s accommodating the spirit of adventure.

To give the sceptics their due, commercial shipping is not just about an adventure. It’s about surviving storms. This life demands that a person spends months on end away from family, adjusting with crew from assorted nationalities and varying degrees of refinement, or the lack of it. When on board, there is constant physical labour, technical snags to be fixed and countless emergencies to be handled. When at the port, there are endless hours supervising the loading or unloading of cargo and engine repairs. There are risks: every mariner’s nightmare, threat of spilling oil into coastal waters, which can land him or her to jail, or a run-in with sea pirates, and we don’t mean sexy Jack Sparrow. And then there’s the sea — playful and capricious one moment, a merciless antagonist the next moment. When days go by without spotting a sliver of land, the grey sky, the slap of the waves against the bow and the unending sway of the ship slowly saps the hardiest spirit.

Why choose such a life? “I’ve always been fascinated by the sea,” says Mandira Nayak, a seismic engineer-to-be. Cadets Varsha Prasad and Megha Sharma agree. “This is such a different life; we just had to explore it.”

And so, the wiry women are game for the tough training. Their day begins at 6 am with an hour of physical training, followed by classes from 8 am to 4.30 pm. “Not one of us failed our PST (personal survival technique) test. We had to jump into a pool from a height of 10 feet. Some of the guys did falter, though,” says Sharma, with undisguised glee.

Back from a six-month-internship at sea, Deepika Rao and Divya Iyer are done with answering mealy-mouthed critics. Rao, who sailed aboard an oil tanker for an Austrian company, Seaarland, says, “It was six months of nose-to-the grindstone work — no concessions to gender,” says Rao. “We kept long watches in the engine room, fetched, carried, bunkered, assisted, got yelled at—-just like the men,” agrees Iyer, who sailed for American company Chevron. “During a major engine breakdown, the chief (engineer) kept telling me to rest; he thought I would collapse. I told him I was fine,” she says with pride.

But the questions keep coming. “During our on-campus selections, my interviewer kept harping on the fact that the hardiest of men have collapsed in these conditions. He wanted to know if I could cope.” The discrimination is subtle, but sharp. “Of the 24 companies who came for campus recruitment, only three talked to us,” says Nayak in disgust.

Then, of course, that mother-of-all-questions: will you drop out once you’re married? “I told my interviewer that for the next five years at least, I have every intention of sailing,” says deck cadet Varsha Prasad. The operative phrase: for the moment. The feisty women don’t have all the answers.

For now, Nayak is looking forward to hunting for oil aboard a research vessel for a German company. Her starting salary: $4,000. Does she feel vindicated? “Look, I’m not a feminist. Just a youngster waiting to see how far I can go…”
After all, the voyage has always mattered more than the destination. Ask Sinbad.