Travel And Leisure

Millenium Sunrise At Katchal Island

By : Ejji	Previous \| Next
Posted on : 11 Dec, 2005	Total Views : 344

Millenium Sunrise at Katchal Island
Katchal, a tiny island near Nicobar was virtually unknown till the Royal Greenwich Laboratory declared that it would be the first inhabited place on earth to catch the first rays of the rising sun when it is 00hrs. 00min.00sec. on the night of 31st December 1999. That is, when the time is the perfect �midnight� between 31st December 1999 and 1st Jan. 2000. But when it is midnight at the �cross hairs� in the Greenwich Laboratory in Britain, the sun is just rising somewhere around the globe. At that precise moment when it is 00hrs.00min.00sec. in Greenwich, they calculated that Katchal would receive the first rays of the sun. And that is how most Indians and others around the world heard the name �Katchal�.

Once this announcement was made, I started finding out about Katchal and making arrangements to be there for the �Millenium Sunrise�. Katchal is a 174 sq.km. Island in the Central Nicobar Group of the Andaman & Nicobar Group of Islands. It is one of the 36 inhabited islands in the A&N Group. It is 230 nautical miles south of Port Blair. The population is around 6000 and the locals call the island Tahiya. The inhabitants are Nicobarese of Mongoloid stock, with Sri Lankan Tamil refugees working on rubber plantations brought in by the government of India. Restricted generated electricity supply and drinking water are available along with a local FM radio station, which broadcasts in Tamil, Malayalam, Nicobarese and English twice a day. The island is eco-fragile and not open to foreigners. Indians will have to be in possession of special tribal passes to visit Katchal. It has a lighthouse. It has no facilities for berthing of large ships. But very small ships can be berthed at a jetty. Local island hopping ships visit the island periodically. It has a basic government guesthouse with about 6 rooms.

The �millenium sunrise at Katchal� was widely advertised as the �Sunrise of the Millenium� by the Government of India. India�s first indigenously built modern passenger ship �Swaraj Deep� (built by the Vizag Ship Yard), was to be used for the occasion and had already been test run to Port Blair. The VIPs would include Vajpayee, L.K.Advani, Uma Bharati, George Fernandez, I.D.Swamy, Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan, special invitees of the Government, a large group of foreign guests, Indian and foreign media, a VIP teenager and his Spanish-Venezuelan girlfriend. A special concert by Bismillah Khan and other top-notch artistes would welcome the millenium. Doordarshan was setting up facilities for a live broadcast of the sunrise. Advertisements appeared in a few select newspapers that tickets could be bought for the voyage to Katchal.

Once I started the process of getting the tickets, I found to my dismay that no one anywhere including the Tourism Ministry in Delhi, the Lt. Governor�s Office in Andamans, and ITDC were aware of how and where one could get the tickets. Anyway, I decided to land up at Port Blair by the 22nd of December 1999 and try my luck. In Port Blair I saw posters all over the town advertising the trip with locations where tickets would be available. I checked those locations only to find that the counters were closed 24 hours of the day! I slowly learnt that the Government of India had limited the number of �guests� for the event to 1200, being the total capacity of Swaraj Deep, but had very cleverly �hijacked� the tickets! The local Government officials in charge of this event were not willing to even issue bunker class tickets! And then luck favored me! On the evening of December 24th 1999, the Indian Airlines flight was hijacked to Kandahar. Added to it was Shankar Dayal Sharma�s death, which was followed by a 7 day mourning period, that resulted in all cultural programs being cancelled. Overnight the ticket windows opened, tickets were available, all because the VIPs had cancelled their visit! And so we got our tickets to Katchal.

The ship Swaraj Deep was a fully air conditioned liner with pile carpeting, cabins of various classes, a helipad, conference lounge, bar (kept closed as per government�s unimaginative orders), cafeterias, dining rooms etc. The ship had never been on a commercial run and was doing its first sailing with passengers.

The ship that could carry 1200 passengers was now carrying only about 290 passengers! But for about 20 paying passengers like my family, and me the rest were freeloading guests of the Government of India. There were many friends of mine who wanted to be on this epic voyage, but could not get tickets, and here was a ship sailing with empty cabins!

The ship left Port Blair at around 9.00 hrs on the morning of 30th December for a sailing of about 16 hours to reach Katchal. Around lunchtime on the 31st, we reached the waters around Katchal escorted by the ships of the Indian Navy sailing in formation beside Swaraj Deep. The sailing was smooth but for the 10 degree Channel on the way, which is considered one of the dangerous sea routes due to unpredictable currents. The Swaraj Deep was anchored in the Revello Channel a few kilometres away from Katchal. The rest of the day was spent in a series of parties, though the ship�s bar was closed. The Lt. Governor of Andamans & Nicobar and other VIPs arrived by helicopter from Port Blair in the afternoon. At night there was a fire works display from the Indian Navy ships, a dazzling spectacle of light and sound.

Midnight saw the millenium change. I had a special glass, which said �Last Drink of the 20th Century� on one side and �First Drink of the 21st Century� on the other. A round of whisky, was passed around in that glass at the stroke of midnight to welcome the 21st century much to the amusement of teetotalers and an unforgettable drink for the others!

The party continued till 4 am and we were on the various decks awaiting the millenium sunrise. The officially announced time for the sunrise was just around 5.30am. When the anxious crowd on the deck slighted the first rays of the sun bursting through the clouds, a whoop of joy and celebration reverberated through the desolate expanse of the seas heralding in a new millenium, which surely not one of those present had seen before or will ever see again! Cameras clicked. Movie cameras whirred. A religious family even conducted a full ceremony on the deck. A catholic priest chanted prayers. A honeymooning couple was in an inseparable embrace having a �millenium kiss�! A Muslim gentleman was praying facing Mecca! Everyone greeting everyone else a �Happy Millenium�. One gentleman on a self-proclaimed �mission for world peace�, was giving a speech that no one listened to. A swamiji in saffron robes conducting a blessing mela! A �gentleman who had grandly of wine� vomiting over the side into the sea! And me opening a champagne bottle (officially announced as imported non-alcoholic apple juice by the press!). It was really a moment to be treasured.

Now comes the interesting part of the story, the landing on Katchal Island. The ship is anchored miles away from the shore of Katchal as the sea is not deep enough to navigate near the island. How do you get on to Katchal?

First a word about a pontoon. A pontoon is nothing but a sheet of steel with a few rods of steel welded vertically around the sides at intervals and a plastic rope tied to the poles as a sort of boundary all round. This pontoon is towed from Katchal by a motor launch and brought near Swaraj Deep. The Swaraj Deep, though anchored well at mid sea, is swaying a wee bit from side to side and waves are crashing on its sides. The launch pushes the pontoon towards the ship and sandwiches it in between the launch and the ship. But the waves keep popping the launch and the pontoon up and down, banging the pontoon against the side of the ship.

The hydraulically operated gangway on the ship can be lowered to facilitate passengers to disembark at harbor berths. But even if you bring the gangway to its lowest position, it is about 10 feet from the pontoon surface. (Imagine that this 10 feet difference is when the pontoon is raised by an oncoming wave and pushed up towards the side of the ship where it hits the ship and falls back with the retreating wave!)

The exercise to visit Katchal is to stand at the lowest step on the gangway that has been lowered to its lowest position. Wait for the wave to push up the pontoon to bang on the ship�s side. At that very instant, jump on the pontoon surface! If you manage it without being crushed between the ship and the pontoon, you sit down on the pontoon while it moves away from the ship with the retarding wave, as it is impossible to stand up. The next wave will push the pontoon back towards the ship, and in the meantime the next person is ready at the last step of the gangway for a similar jump! When there are a few successful passengers on the pontoon, the lucky ones still alive on the pontoon walk into the safety of the launch!

It is interesting to note that not one of the ship crew was willing to try this exercise. A few of us managed to jump on to the pontoon, including a few ladies and a very old man. Sheer courage or disregard for their own lives? The launch then moves on to Katchal Island jetty. When we got off, we were welcomed by the locals and had to walk around the island.

Katchal has the local Nicobarese living in stilted houses made of thatch and wooden poles. The living quarters are in the first level and below them on the ground livestock are kept. Absolutely poor conditions. But every few hatched huts have a satellite dish wired to the other huts. You climb the rough wooden steps and go into the thatched living quarters and what do you find? Color 29� Sony TV, Nike shoes, Levi jeans, whisky and local brew, Japanese radios and music systems! How these amenities reach there is a story by itself that cannot be written for publication.

The entire landscape has coconut trees with rotting coconuts all around. Fruit trees with rotting fruit strewn and decaying on the ground. A few rubber plantations manned by Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, settled here by the Government of India. The rest of the locals spend their time imbibing the local brew and enjoying the pleasures of life. They don�t want to even collect the naturally growing fruits and send them to the other islands or the mainland (as India is called all over A&N) for 2 reasons. Why work and earn, when everything is being doled out free by quite a few organizations? Next, the cost of transportation from Katchal to any place is prohibitive and this built in cost of transportation kills the market. They listen to music, watch satellite television, drink and while away the time. A few Ranchi Biharis and Keralites are also settled here, but carry on small trade.

After a round of the island and a good drink of the local brew with roast pork so generously offered us by the Katchal citizens, we got on to the launch for the journey back to the ship. That is when an eerie experience unfolds.

Not one of us adventuring types who accepted to visit Katchal by jumping from the ship 10 feet down to the pontoon, thought about the modalities of getting back on the ship. Yes! You can jump down 10 feet, but to get back on board the ship, you cannot fly up 10 feet! How to do it. Here�s the story.

The launch pushes the pontoon as before and sandwiches it between itself and the ship. When the wave pushes the pontoon up towards the side of the ship, you stand on the edge of the pontoon, jump up in the air and catch the ship�s lowest gangway step. If you miss, you fall into the sea, by which time the pontoon has moved away from the ship with the receding wave, and is ready to come back and crush you to death between itself and the ship!

The crew of Swaraj Deep was in readiness on the gangway and pulled up the jumping passenger by hand to safety. One old man literally slipped and fell back a few inches, but was saved by a crew member who caught his hand and hauled him up, though the old man�s jaw hit the gangway and was bleeding profusely.

The ship weighed anchor after lunch and we were on the way back to Port Blair after an experience that was unique. Unique because not one of us had been born at the turn of the last millenium. And not one of us will be alive for the next millenium sunrise. But the 21st Millenium Sunrise at Katchal was an unforgettable experience. Thanks to the Kandahar hijack and Shankar Dayal Sharma�s death, we were able to be at Katchal. And our luck prevented us from dying in our efforts to be on the pontoon.

Subsequently, the GOI started promoting Katchal as a privileged and limited tourist destination by building a couple of guesthouses. But even then they had priced it high for top end tourists, only as a package tour from Port Blair. Indians still needed a permit from the A&N Administration, and foreigners a clearance from the home ministry. Sadly the small Katchal Island was broken in two by the recent Tsunami. Nearly the entire population perished.

Written By : Ejji

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