A class IV candidate in India commited suicide as he could not pass oral in MMD Kolkata

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From a facebook entry from Al Mahmud Hasan‎  23 November 2019

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From Jithin Thomas 23 November 2019

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Jithin Thomas 23 November 2019

Dear friends…..Its really shocking and painful to see and share such a post. This is to inform that one of the class 4 candidate ( a competative exam in merchant navy to become an engineer officer) has commited suicide at Taratala seamans club kolkata, because he couldn’t clear Orals (viva) after several attempts.
being a sailor I used to get so many enquiries from lot of aspirants about jouing merchant navy. so i decided to write this spending some time. we sailors undergoes good and well desciplined training during pre-sea training days. its so depresing to see the suicide of a fellow seafarer who was so much oriented, focussed, trained, and offcourse studied…

1, Merchant navy is not a defence job like army , indian navy, etc.. Its a completely private job.. come on guys, we are just sailors.. not soldiers… its a place where you can see the cheif engineers and even masters/captains do job by their hand.

2, After doing the sailing as a trainee engineer/cadet, we have to undergo some exams which includes 10 papers on engineer side (6 written and 4 orals) which is so hard and tough even for a studious man as the role of “Luck” has much influence in this. if we loose one attempt we have to wait for 2-3 months to get next. so basically its too much time consuming. most of the average people loose around 1.5 -2 years to undergo all the process. in these days we cant go for other jobs fully commited as our focus is to clear this one which requires so much leaves and all for preperation. so basically all seafarers are financially very “poor” during these days. its so challenging to satisfy our ego as we tries to be financially self sufficient with out any income and very less opportunity to get a flexible part time job during the exam days. The tension/stress a man undergoes during this time period is unimaginably hard with no sureness about future and stability.

4, Nowadays many companies sends the people as junior watchkeeping officers even after getting their COC (certificate of competency) not only for one contract! for 2, 3 contracts for much less salary.

3, Everone envying about our vocation time. 6 months at sea and 6 months on “vocation” , right? how many of you guys knows crew have a long 9 months contract? how many of you knows we have to do a lot of courses while at leave which are expensive and time consuming? how many of you know we undergoes through lots of procedures, exams, courses to go higher in career ladder?

4, I am sure many of my friends are not aware of the word called “jetlag”(its the sleeping dissorder because of changing time zone). in 18 days avg ship which is moving will have a difderence of 5-6 hours as they set their clock as per their current time zone. this have some effects in our “biological clock”.

5, Many people think we visit all countries. Nowadays shoreleaves became a rare event as many of the ports are at inner unpopulated industrial areas. and many countries are not happy to allow shore leaves also. If yoy are in a VLCC (very large crude carrier) , forget about it, you wont see shore for 6 months atleast.

6, Apart from these time zone changes, we dont have a fixed work scedule. some times 4 on 8 off (hourly), some times 6 on 6off, some time day works, its all about the requirement. (for 2 days you sleep from 12 to 6, for next few days you work at that time and sleep at night. and again back to first time schedule…..imagine😀😀) if there is any breakdown/emergency, we cant just sit resting. regardles of time, mood, energy, rest, etc the problems should be attended and resolved. ship should be running always (safely) thats the one and only goal.

7, if anything happens medically, all we can do is using limited supply (which is sufficient for surviving) of medicines. and wait till next port to consult a doctor who might not even know english. (i still remeber my first real life monoact before a chinese doctor to explain how my hand bone broke😀😀 the other person with me had to show he had urinal bladder stone🤣🤣 )

8, So the sealife is not like the ads we see on TVs or movies.. its entirely different.

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