Short Story: The Captain’s Beard by Hanish Rahane

I

MV Red Fin was a very small ship. She was also a very old ship. As soon as the wave swell hit medium, she would start to make ungodly sounds — as if she were breaking. More often than not she had taken her crew to the brink of disaster. She was a problem child, but that’s what made her so special. Like any difficult ship, she was very close to her crew’s hearts. The crew took pleasure in the feeling of being the only ones who could resist her every whim… who could understand her mind. It was an unwilling compromise. They tried to keep her happy; she tried to keep them safe. The crew comprised of twenty men with Captain Mohandass in command.

Captain Mohandass was quite different from Mohan the man. Behind a façade of a long, magnificent, philosopher-like, snow white beard lay a supremely bigoted mind. He had never liked visiting Pakistan and was rather unshakable in his ‘hindutvavadi’ (Hindu supremist) beliefs. But he tried to contain his resentment…to keep his nerves calm. However, as time passed that day, Mohan was starting to get grouchy. ‘They better not harm my ship or my crew.’ Mohan thought, ‘Or ill teach them a lesson.’ The last thing he wanted was ‘an incident’. Not at this port. Not in the ‘enemy territory’. All operations had to be meticulously executed. It was his responsibility to ensure that.