Maheshwar Soogrim
“In a captain’s work you have to know a little bit of everything.”
By Leon Suseran
Sixty-seven year-old Maheshwar Soogrim has spent much of his life on the waterways of the world and right here at home too. His love for the rivers, oceans and seas, piloting the direction of steamers and larger vessels has earned him a name in the Ancient County and in the annals of the Transport & Harbours Department (T&HD). Soogrim was very dedicated to his job and ensured that he worked beyond the call of duty, when the need arose.
He was born at Sheet Anchor Village, East Canje, Berbice, on June 14, 1945. His father was Soogrim, a fisherman. Young Soogrim attended the All Saints’ Scot School in New Amsterdam by day and assisted his father with fishing at nights, in the waterways and rivers in Berbice.
“In the nights, I would go fishing with him and go back to school in the morning. We used to fish all over Berbice.”He had two sisters and Maheshwar recalled that in spite of his father being a single parent, “he was trying a lot—he did fishing very regularly, because he had to look after us”.
It so happened that Maheshwar Soogrim met his wife while he was fishing one day in the Glasgow, East Bank Berbice area. They got married in 1964 and settled right there. In 1969, he joined the Guyana Mining Enterprises (GUYMINE) and worked on the bauxite boat, which traveled to Trinidad, Venezuela and even the United States. He acquired his Captain’s Licence. This was the beginning of a long journey of life being spent off-land. Maheshwar reflected that he started off as an ordinary deck-boy or ‘deck- hand’. He was then promoted to Sailor, then Able-Bodied Sailor and later Boatswain.
“The Boatswain took instructions from the Mate and passed them on to the workers”.
“After then, I changed ship and I was employed with Reynolds Bauxite Company, based in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was employed as an Able-Bodied Sailor, and after I finished with that, I went on another boat called’ Ziponna’, owned by a Greek Company.”
He was afforded the opportunity to travel across several countries, including Canada and the U.S.A.
“It’s nice, because when you go to a different country, you normally have to pay… but they were paying for us and taking us. We used to go to Africa, Canada, Halifax, all over in the States, Mississippi and so on.”
He reminisced that in Northern Canada, the part where he was, there was very little sun.
“The majority of the time was winter—we had very little sun there. You get a little problem with the coldness. Sometimes when you get sun for a day, you come out and sit down in the sun and you’re glad for it, because it used to be very cold and the whole river was sheer ice… and the ship too—you had to be indoors most of the time.”
“Me and my colleagues interchanged shifts keeping watch and steering the ship, but sometimes we used automatic steering.”
Two years later, Maheshwar joined another bauxite company on the East Bank of Berbice as a Boatswain doing the job of a Second Mate, “…automatic steering—the captain ran one watch, the Chief Mate ran one and the Boatswain ran another. I ran the 4-8 watch”.
In 1976, upon returning home on one-month’s leave, he was employed as a captain by Raymond Corporation. He captained the company tug while the Canje River Bridge was being constructed.
“I was a key-man on that project. I had to go with the tug and take off the beams… and they built the bridge and it finished before schedule in 1978. Then I entered GUYMINE transporting Bauxite from Kwakwani to Everton, about 180 miles up the Berbice River.”
He was employed there from 1978 to 1988.
At the controls of the MV Makouria in 2004
Maheshwar was recommended for employment with the T&HD by the then Harbour Master, Mr. Tony Haynes. “He knew me and he knew I got my licence and he wrote a recommendation to Transport and as soon as T&HD saw that recommendation from him, they employed me.” He quickly attained his Guyana Coastal Master Licence.
He was employed as a Mate in 1991 on the MV Torani. “I led the deck-hands and worked on the bridge”. “After three months, they realized that I got my certificate and had potential and they put me as Captain right away, and I started to run the Berbice River, from the New Amsterdam Stelling to Rosignol Stelling.”
He operated nearly all of T&HD’s steamers including MV Torani, Makouria, Lady Northcote, Barima and Kimbia, on the Northwest trips. On the Northwest trips, he stated that due to the fact that he did not know those rivers too well, he was employed as Mate, “I knew the outside of the river, but they had to get a man who knew the inside [of the river]”.
Soogrim was passionate about his work on the rivers. Sometimes other captains refused to ply the rivers when either of the ferries had to operate on one engine, but he readily responded to the call by his Supervisors.
“The other captains would refuse, so the Marine section used to call me and I used to be on time-off and they asked me to go and operate it, so I used to tell them to load it [the boat] and I will go at 4 o’clock and I worked the boat.”
He stated that one-engine boats were generally accident-prone, “but I always took the risks and I was a key-man there, too. Some persons there did not like me”.
And so, the work that he was doing and his level of dedication made him feel ‘burnt- out’ and pressured a lot and this brought on a lot of challenges. One was losing a lot of rest at night.
“It pressed me, because I know the river and when you leave here 9pm on Monday nights, I had to stay awake until Wednesday—that was rough—very rough,” he recounted. His said that his Mates would load the ferries, but they had little or no knowledge of the Berbice River, and so Soogrim could not have left them in charge while he took some rest.
Instead, he had to be up all night. “I knew the River right up to Kwakwani, and even if I left someone in charge, I did not feel pleased.” He recalled that he had to always be on the look-out when making turns, and watching for other approaching ships, while always maintaining contact with the marine authorities. “That was a little technical,” he recalled.
“When I retired in 2006, I was very happy, actually, because I was too much pressed—the rest that I lost, because there were no capable persons to work the shifts.” He recalled that one time there was a mishap when he left his Mate in charge, while he rested.
“We were going up the Berbice River and it occurred in the vicinity of Sand Hills on the MV Lukanani. The mist was a lot. I was going around from Sand Hills to a place called Kumaka and I handed over shift to him and as soon as I went to get some rest, he [the Mate] ran the ship onto the savannah. We spent an extra day on the river stranded until help came.”
The ferries no longer ply the route from New Amsterdam to Rosignol after the Berbice River Bridge came into existence. Today, there is a daily pontoon service which operates twice per day, mainly to shuttle school children and workers across the Berbice River. Soogrim was indeed proud, therefore, to have been a part of a historic period when Berbice had steamers, and he was among those who captained them.
Many times, though, there were numerous outcries and complaints from the general public and travellers about the service provided by the steamers and T&HD, including late schedules and vessels which broke down mid-stream and such like.
To that, Soogrim offered an explanation. “To be honest, T&HD had a lot of racket going on there. From the top right down, people used to run racket, and the boats were not properly maintained. If, for instance, you had a problem with lights, you had to write to Georgetown and someone came two or three days later and checked.”
“These complaints from the public got me angry, because I knew it wasn’t right. I would even go downstairs of the vessel and load it myself to assist people to go over the river quickly.”
Soogrim was honoured by Mr Tom Karran of the Management Committee of the N/A- Rosignol Stellings, for carrying 39 trucks on one afternoon from the Stanelytown Stelling to Rosignol, while they were doing repairs to the N/A Stelling.
Even though he was Captain and had to be upstairs at the helm of the ships, he would regularly take time out to interact and chat with passengers, “…especially when at Stanleytown. Most people [drivers] used to come to me and they used to plead with me so that I could allow their vehicles on the vessels, since they had wanted to cross the River urgently. I would give instructions to my Mates to take in the vehicles and pack the vessels accordingly…the big ones first and then the small ones—9, 10, 11 trucks at one time, and I used to keep my schedules”.
When asked what makes a good captain, he responded “In a captain’s work you have to know a little bit of everything—radar, how to communicate with your crewmembers, etc.”
He believes that he was trained for the job on the rivers and seas, ever since his days as a young fisherman.
“I was trained for that and I never did any other kind of work.”
These days, he can be found relaxing at his home and spending time with his family. And ironically, the Berbice River is just behind his backyard. Persons do come from time to time and would ask him to captain their boats and tugs, but Soogrim believes he has “had enough of it” and prefers to take it easy. “Even if T&HD comes to me now—the only thing I will do for them is if they want to train someone for the river routes… I would go.”
Maheshwar Soogrim had the required level of dedication and discipline on a job that required one to be on the alert for much of the time and one that “demanded good eye sight” as he stated; a job where thousands of lives, perhaps, were left under his charge as he made his way across the Berbice and Essequibo Rivers. Essentially, it was a life lived in love and passion for what he did.
BY KAIETEUR NEWS