One of the joys of living in Mumbai is enjoying the vast waterfront. Like Karachi, Mumbai is a coastal city and the expanse of the sea is visible and accessible from several points. The sea is there for everybody, from the rich who live in waterfront apartments, and sail to the rest of the aam aadmi who can walk on the beaches and the promenade. The beaches are a movable feast of coconut sellers, acrobats, horses and families “eating the breeze” (hawa khaana.)

Now there is an added attraction on the famed Juhu beachfront — a massive ship. For the past two weeks or so, the MV (merchant vessel) Wisdom, a 9000-tonne cargo ship has been stuck in shallow waters within swimming distant of the shore and has become a tourist site for Mumbaiwallahs. Thousands of eager and curious visitors throng the beach from morning to night to gawk at the leviathan which looks close enough to touch and on a low tide day, can be reached by just walking on the sand.

Some intrepid souls have tried to swim there and one unfortunate 15 year old paid with his life when the current swept him away. The police and other authorities are helpless in coping with the crowds and the best they can do is to keep a sharp eye out for any accidents.

The Wisdom was on its way to the Alang shipbreaking yard in Gujarat, up the coast from Mumbai, when the cable between it and the tugboat pulling it snapped. Initially it appeared that the boat was drifting dangerously close to the sealink, a 5.6 kilometre long bridge on the sea. That would have been a monumental disaster indeed. Fortunately, the currents carried the ship northward and it finally came to rest on the soft, sandy shore near Juhu, the city’s premier public beach.

Many attempts have been made to pull it out and send it packing to the shipyard, but a combination of shallow waters, strong winds and other technical reasons has stymied all efforts. The beast continues to rest there, a dark and ghostly presence totally incongruous in it’s setting.

One more exercise to shift it will be carried out 10 or so days from now when the high tide will give it enough buoyancy to sail. But already environmentalists are expressing fears that the boats paint etc can start peeling off and get into the water, thus causing considerable damage to the coastline and marine life.

Worse, some say that the ship is now unbudgeable and may have to be stripped and broken on site, i.e. in the water off Mumbai. That is not something that can be easily done and it is debatable whether those skills exist here. And that will for sure have environmental implications.

The police have warned people not to get too close to the ship because a lot of equipment left by the salvers is lying around it and could cause damage to swimmers and others. But try telling that to those who are always interested in new forms of enjoyment! That is what the ship is now, one more activity for “time pass.” No wonder the galleries are playing House Full morning, evening and night, day after day.

 Sidharth Bhatia is a journalist based in Bombay (Mumbai).

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