The boatyard on the way to Fort Cochin ...

On the road from Murari to Fort Cochin, we were never far from the Arabian Sea - we passed fishing villages, with their beflagged boats, white beaches and boatyards -

We stopped briefly, in one such village - a catch was expected, perhaps - men were gathered in the shade of the coconut palms - they had ridden Hercules bicycles here, or nursed ailing Royal Enfields across the sand - an auto rickshaw, extravagantly decorated, was parked close to the road -

Fishing boats were drawn up at the sea's edge - a crow wavered through the air above the boats -

There was a small boatyard nearby - I peered through the fence at boats being shaped by clever planes and chisels -

I suddenly thought of my dad - he'd been a shipwright in the Royal Navy - I'd found the note books he'd written when he was a young sailor - there were beautiful pen and ink drawings of sea anchors, knots and cross sections of whalers -

I remembered him telling me how he'd discussed politics with the chaplain, how one fellow had bodged the rifle drill -

My eyes brimmed with tears - my dad stayed in his armchair now, but once he'd sailed across oceans -