Hello friends,
Hope you are doing well.
Today I remembered an episode that happened in my life,
Perhaps in 2002 or 2003.
I was working as the country head of a multinational company handling ships of various types.
We got an agency of a ferry service which was newly starting between the Arabian Gulf to India.
Brilliant idea,
Beautiful thing.
Because the people from India who come and work in the Middle East have to take flights.
They come by flight and the flights are expensive and the flights only allow about 20 kilos of personal baggage while going back or in whichever transit.
The people who are working hard in the Middle East earning for their families,
They would like to take much more material and also cheaper cost that would help them to give more to their families.
So the ferry service was a brilliant idea.
We took up the agency and when I studied the ship,
I found that the ship is not suitable safety wise.
Only about 70 people can be accommodated in rooms,
The rest was deck.
I checked further about the vessel and I found that this vessel was a ferry.
That means it was operating for less than 8 hours distance.
It's not a long distance.
But from Arabian Gulf to India,
It's about 4 days.
So a ship equipped to operate short distance such as 8 hours or 10 hours is not good enough to operate 4 days.
And if they take about 300 people,
About 70 people will be in the first class or indoors and the rest of them will be on deck.
And it's extremely dangerous.
So the safety aspects of the ship was definitely not good.
I brought this up to the owners of the ship and I was surprised by the comment by one of the owners,
Oh they are labourers.
I said they are human beings.
They can die in the sea.
Imagine sun,
Rain,
The salt water around them,
All these put together can really make them sick and they are exposed to all the weathers,
The night and the days,
4 days and in what condition will they reach home.
I can't allow the ship to travel from here.
Then it became a controversy.
The owners were from a different country.
They came down,
They met a minister in my country,
The country where I was in and the minister offered them support because we all want good ferry service to start between arriving Gulf to India.
It was a very good idea.
So everybody offered support.
Then he met the chief of police,
He met lot of people.
Then he came to me,
He said that all these people are supporting me.
Now you have to make this happen.
I said I won't.
Safety features are not satisfactory.
I said if the safety features are enhanced,
I will support or change the ship where everybody has a roof above them.
Means all people are indoors,
They have rooms,
Then it's okay,
Then I will support it.
But when you are planning a vessel like this or a voyage like this with people sitting on the deck,
I cannot support it.
Then he started offering bribe to me.
I said no.
And he started telling me various things or various levels of emotions and stuff that he spent a lot of money for the ship.
Now he has to do it otherwise he'll be bankrupt.
So many different things he said.
I said look here,
I fully understand where you're coming from,
But I cannot allow this ship to travel from this port to India or anywhere with this condition and this safety standards.
That's simple.
Because if people die on the way,
We will be responsible.
I can't allow that to happen.
And then it got escalated.
The travel agencies started attacking me.
People started attacking me,
Calling me and abusing me on phone.
People who got my number used to call me and I stopped taking all anonymous calls.
Then they used to call in the landline into the office and abuse our people.
They kind of projected an image that I've been bribed by the airline industry to stop this ferry.
And people asked how much money did you get from the airlines to stop this?
This is for poor people.
And these people had offered 200 kilos of personal baggage per head,
Which is a lot while airlines are offering 20 kilos.
Binge temptation.
People were literally attacking me and it was very difficult for me to leave the office and go because there are people outside our office.
The travel agencies were also putting pressure because they already started selling tickets.
They were planning to take 300 people and only 70 people can stay indoors and almost 230 people will be on the deck.
Women,
Children,
Just imagine if the sea is rough and the transit is more difficult,
It may take one more day probably.
This journey is very,
Very difficult in such conditions.
So I strongly objected.
I stood my ground.
One of these days when I had just reached home,
It was very late.
I was working the whole day.
When I reached home and I switched on the TV,
The news,
I'm seeing my own face in the news.
And they're saying in the news that I've been heavily bribed by the airline industry.
That's why I am stopping this ferry.
So they say that we suspect that Mr.
Mohan has been bribed and stuff like that.
At 9 p.
M.
I called a press conference.
9 p.
M.
I invited the press.
I gave a press conference.
I answered all their questions.
I explained the security measures,
Lack of safety measures in the ship.
I explained the whole thing to the whole media.
Next day it came in the newspaper that the vessel do not have the basic safety features and that's why this is prevented to travel from here.
It was a tall order to get this message through.
Then I got a call from the minister's office and said that we didn't know that.
Actually we thought everything is fine and then we didn't know why an agent like you want to stop the special.
I said nothing is fine.
I told the minister the same thing.
Nothing is fine.
And in this current safety standards of the ship,
So many people will die and we will be responsible.
Then the chief of police called me and said,
Are you sure that you are not thinking again and I said no.
There are no more thoughts about it.
This is sure.
Unless they change the ship where everybody can sit indoors if they have rooms,
Otherwise we are not supporting this particular ship.
So then the ship owner came to me and said we would like to cancel the contract with you.
I said sure.
And I agreed and then we cancelled the contract that they had with us,
With our organisation.
Meanwhile my boss called from a different location,
The director of our company and he asked do you need any help.
I said no I don't need any help.
I will handle this.
Because I am sure that this is the thing to do and this is the right thing I am doing.
I was very confident.
So we cancelled the contract with the owner of the ship and then the owner took this contract to many companies and nobody actually accepted because they know the whole story by now that the ship is not good enough.
He bought this ship very cheap and he thought that he will fly this ship between Arabian Sea to India and make money.
But without the safety features so many people will die and even the first voyage will be a disaster.
We can't allow that to happen.
So I kept my stand and other agents also said the same thing to him and finally he did one voyage from a different country,
Different port and in the voyage he only accommodated 70 people.
He just wanted to prove that it can happen,
It can be done and he only accommodated people who can stay within the rooms.
Still 6 people died.
So then the whole ferry issue stopped.
Why I thought of this now is because when we stand up against something which the society needs you may get reprimanded for it or you may be attacked for it or you could be candleised for it.
I experienced this.
No airlines ever contacted me with money.
This was a total nonsense.
But the media and the people made people believe that I've been bribed by airlines and it's not easy to change that thought because people automatically believe the negative and to tell the positive it takes time or to understand the positive it takes time and I don't know whether everybody understood what actually happened with the ship.
But you have to stick with your truth and do what is right.
This I always followed.
Stand with truth,
Do what is right and if you don't do it people can die or people can continue to be harassed or exploited or at least disrespected.
I thought about this in the current situation where the racial profiling situation happens in German airports and probably some other airports in the world.
We are standing up towards an establishment.
You know it's an establishment and it's not easy to stand up against an establishment which has created certain rules suitable for them not suitable for the people or not considering the people who are experiencing it.
So when you stand up against something like that there is every chance that people would scandalize you to thwart you from proceeding further.
This is natural and many people will not want to participate because they are probably having fears or confusions or even cowardice.
So they may say that oh no no no why do you go for it or let them do whatever they want it doesn't matter.
It matters.
When you have mouth you should speak,
Speak the right thing at the right time.
So I thought of this story because this was a big fiasco at that time and it came in newspaper and televisions and everything and I became infamously famous because of that.
But I still believe I did the right thing because if these people had actually left our shores on the deck in six to eight hours or maximum 10 hours we would have heard about many deaths on the sea.
We have to stand up when there is injustice or when there is something which is not appropriate for our species or any species.
We should stand up and say this is wrong.
We have to.
This is very important and what annoyed me most was one of the directors of the owners company said oh they are after all labourers.
Why do you care as if labourers are not human beings.
That actually made me determined to fight for them because these are poor people.
When it's poor people you don't care.
You only care about their money or the money you get and if they are poor people those who do not cannot speak or do not speak then you do not care.
That's wrong.
Really wrong.
You must care for all the helpless around you.
That is exactly where you become a human being.
This is the talk for today.
I hope you enjoyed it and think about it,
Ponder over it and let's see we can talk further about it.
Lots of love.
