The Paddler Autumn/Fall issue 2017

It’s fast and reckless all of a sudden, and a
turbulent sea keeps me guessing my route. After
28 kms of horrendous kayaking and four hours
at sea, I am three kms from Rajpara, the last big
fishing village this side of the gulf. At this
opportune time, dehydrated and aching, I get
sucked into an eddie. Waves leap up at me as I
kayak above rocks hidden from view. The water
makes it difficult to decipher the right way out.
A large fishing boat, the only kinds that can ply
here, spots me. They take a U-turn, from their
position of safety, to provide help. By the time
they arrive I’m made my peace with the water
and instead we quickly exchange information.
Sitting two kms out at sea, they help plot a
course, and I bid adieu to the rough waters in
exchange for Gujurati hospitality. Day 11.
Seventy-two more to go.
Detour: the ship graveyard
Nothing on this trip, and I mean nothing, had me
more excited than the small town of Alang.
There is that old question, “If you knew where
you would meet your demise, would you
knowingly go there?” For 30 years, ships have
been, like dogs sensing their end, retreating to
Alang for their last rites. Huge giants of the sea
treading softly in on a high tide, and as the water
retreats their death toll is rung.
It takes three months to tear apart a medium
size container vessel, says the guard, Prajapati. He
tells me that once a ship is brought into land, the
captain is relieved of his ship. Sold through bids
to any one of the multitude of ship breakers, it’s
now no more than a hunk of metal, wood and
plastic – and not a scrap goes to waste.
As we drive into Alang, five kms out, they start.
Big open warehouses, fenced and categorized,
big dusty yards turned orange by life-rafts of all
sizes and states of disrepair. One lot has engines
in that rustproof green. Cables, pulleys, ropes of
varying thicknesses and make. I ask for life
jackets and the owner of the yard starts blowing
into aircraft yellow inflatables. I can buy a bath
tub with the works and a jerry can to fill it with.
Furniture stores share a border with
warehouses selling wood planks that share a
border with waterproof doors. Buoys, anchors
and winter down-jackets.
An army of workers from all over India come
here to work, says Ramprakash, the kindly,
groggy attendant at ship breaking plot 134. What
once took years of work, from parts from
around the world and withstood the battering
of a million waves, is now taken apart by a mob
of migrant workers in the brown city in Gujarat.
As the workers start entering the plots, I smell
fumes. The kinds my lungs would avoid if they
could take a walk off of this beach. Big chemical
carriers, container ships, dredgers, drillers. 50%
of the world’s ships due for demolition come to
Alang. On a long enough timeline the chances of
a ship ending up at Alang is higher than ships in
the Suez Canal being attacked by Somali Pirates
on a bad day. Definitely more than the chances
of the workers seeing a ripe age of 60. Welcome
to Alang,the dying graveyard.
Alang’s beach runs for five kms, each plot shares
a wall with another. Walls and gates meant to
keep prying eyes and camera lenses out. Fate is
not without irony as the one thing they all share
in common are the words boldly painted on the
wall — ‘Safety first.’ To drive home the humour –
‘Clean Sosiyo, Green Sosiyo.’
I’ve now wriggled my way on to the beach. The
first ship I see looks a wreck. A container vessel
whose stern literally fell out with the rest of the
ship. Containers stand in the water while an
open ship rotor sticks out over the brown
murky waves. I move on. The next ship looks
almost whole, only the top of the bow has been
ThePADDLER 61