Scripting a New India

“Capt. Raj?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, this is Capt Jagan here. How are you?”

“Oh Hi.” I had spoken to Jagan a couple of times before. He used to be the master of a VLCC when his ECDIS had a problem. Later he joined Essar office.

“I didn’t know you are a charged hydrographic surveyor,” he said with a laugh,

“How do you charge a surveyor by the way? Do you put a 220V through him?”

I laughed.


“We need your signature to authenticate a hydrographic survey that we have carried out.”

“For what?” I asked, “Are you submitting the survey to the HO?”

“No no. This is a requirement of the state maritime board.”

A week later one fine morning, all of a sudden I got a call from Jagan,

“Sorry for the short notice. Can you come to Hazira today?”

"How long does it take by taxi?” I asked.

“Five hours.”

Provided you had a top-end car and there was no traffic, which he forgot to tell me. It took me nine hours to muster a good car, grab an overnighter bag and reach the Essar office at Hazira. On the highway I found lots of construction going on. The Surat to Mumbai highway was going to become world-class.

”Kab tak ho jayega?” I asked the driver. Before the next monsoon he told me. Meanwhile my left hand was clutched on the handle bar and my right on my heart, as the fast car zoomed through the traffic. It was swerving in and out overtaking all kinds of trucks forming an endless line to Gujarat.

So there I was. Back in Essar. I had sailed in Essar ships ten years back. I felt I was back amongst familiar surroundings and known people.

Rao is the boss of that unit. An old timer who has been through the ups and downs of the company, many downs till this dizzying ‘up’ happened. He inherited the chair from a retired admiral who didn’t wait for the good times to come. Rao has a band of hard working people under him.

I knew Manoj from the Navy. Both of us were from the hydrographic branch. Jagan Lal is a workhorse. He has carried the hectic life of a ship during loading/discharging to this shore post. Somebody should tell him to relax. Unlike a ship which has a fixed tenure that ends after a few months, here on-shore life goes on and on and on… I was meeting these guys at a port terminal being built by Essar.

Hazira is, or till recently was, a god-forsaken place. Essar has an iron ore plant here where they make hot-bricketed iron (HBI). It has a market in the far-east – Japan, Korea and now increasingly to China. A new port is coming up here. Lot of infrastructure is being built. A new face of India is being scripted here.

On the other side of the road Essar has built a township. On land that had being reclaimed from the sea. I am not sure if ‘reclaimed’ is the right word. Because as Leslie Forbes wrote in ‘Bombay Ice’

“How do you reclaim something that was never yours in the first place?”

Nevertheless, from the swampy wastelands Essar has created Nand Niketan, a paradise of a place. There is greenery all around. The place is well planned and well managed. It has all amenities available such as play-grounds, swimming pool, schools, and shopping centers including a mall. So much so, that the 7000 fortunate residents hardly feel the need to go to the big city 18 kilometers away.

In the Essar office Jagan appeared a little pressurized. “What are your charges?”

I said “Look, I don’t know what the job is. Anyway, what is the hurry?”

Jagan got a little more pressurized.

“You have to simply put your signature and authenticate the survey.”

“For whose benefit?”

“For the benefit of the maritime board. They want a charge surveyor to authenticate the survey.”

Jagan mentioned a figure. I nodded my assent to his great relief.

The hydrographic surveyor from the maritime board came in. He was a chilled out fellow. It turned out we had served on the same ships. We knew many of the old timers from the branch. We got along well.

“Kabhi aaiye GMB mein. Main aapko wahan set kara doonga.”

I gave him my charming smile.

I was impressed by the developments Essar and its employees had wrought upon Gujarat. They are pumping funds in Jamnagar and Hazira. Transforming the non-descript places on the map into modern cities.

If somebody wants to see how infra-structure should be developed out of nothing they should visit these places.

Postscript – Some names have been changed to protect the identities.