A Journey from Sailor to Writer
Hi, everyone. I’m J. Dhopte, a mechanical engineer, marine engineer, professor, author of Erosion of Democracy and Corporatocracy — Democracy Be Damned! available on Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, etc., and now a writer on Medium, WordPress, etc.
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I started writing on Medium in Aug. 2023. I love making friends on the platform. So, leave a comment introducing yourself. I’d love to get to know you!
Our current culture of divisiveness, hostility, and distrust has cost each of us profoundly. But hope not only exists in the periphery, but it also oozes all over the place. It is alive and well between each of us and the stranger we’ve never even met, and, yes, our Medium friend.
I was born and raised in a middle- class family in a small town named Chandrapur. I got my primary and secondary education at St. Michael’s High School.
Thereafter, I went to Durgapur, a well-planned city with two steel plants. There I graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
A Sailor
I started my career in Merchant Navy, working on the ships. I started with Shipping Corporation of India who sponsored my diploma in Marine Engineering at Marine Engineering and Research Institute, Mumbai.
I started working on ships as a junior engineer. My first ship was a chemical tanker, Sabarimala, which used to carry phosphoric acid from cities like Safi and Jorf Lasfar in Morocco to different ports of India while taking bunker in ports, Suez and Said, Egypt. Once, I got a chance to visit Cairo.
The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea. Suez Port lies on the southern end of the Suez Canal at the mouth of the Suez Gulf in northern Egypt. Said port lies on the northern entrance of Suez Canal. It takes 2 -3 hours to reach Cairo from Port Said.
Cairo is the capital of Egypt and is most famous for one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Great Pyramid of King Khufu, the colossal limestone statue of a recumbent Sphinx, the house of mummification, and the Valley Temple.
In the heart of Cairo lies the sound of freedom, Tahrir Square, and the Museum, a house of magic that has many artefacts and monuments dating back to the 26th dynasty.
I worked on the chemical tanker Sabarimala, the oil tanker Ambedkar, bulk carriers, and cargo ships. On ships, I used to do the operation and maintenance of engines, diesel generators, boilers, steam turbines, feed pumps, condensers, air conditioning and refrigeration systems, incinerators, air compressors, oil purifiers, etc.
After 5 years, I joined a Dubai-based shipping company, Al-Fatima Shipping Company, UAE, as a second engineer, and there I became Chief Engineer after six months.
The life at sea
The life of a merchant navy engineer on board a ship is adventurous, exciting, and extremely rewarding. A marine engineer trots, visits beautiful places, and meets interesting people.
Seafaring is definitely not for the faint of heart, but for individuals with passion and perseverance. The fact that we are in the sea, where “upside there is only God, bottom side there are sharks, and we are in the middle,” means that “in the open sea, you are your own help.
Here’s a list of countries that I have seen in my merchant navy career: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, Australia, Sri Lanka, Gibraltar, Morocco, Egypt, all Middle East countries like the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel etc.
The travel is awesome. The earth is made up of 3/4th sea and 1/4th land. I have been lucky enough to sail across three oceans around the world. Being a nature lover, my work used to keep me right next to nature. It was like a constant companion. You get to see the best sunrises and sunsets.
Watching the whales blow water, watching the dolphins race with the bow of the ship — not to forget the beautiful natural scenery around the world. It’s a first-hand experience and one that always makes you feel joy.
Culture, people, sight-seeing, and flora and fauna You are exposed to almost everything. I got to know people with different nationalities, and I now have friends from almost all parts of the globe.
10 years later, I left Merchant Navy and started working for the plastic component manufacturing company Alpha Foam Ltd. in Pune as a maintenance manager. I used to carry out the operation and repair of polyurethane foam forming, vacuum forming, extrusion machines, plant utilities, compressors, chilling plants, cooling towers, etc.
Zanzibar
Since I was curious and a wandering soul, two years later, I went to Tanzania, Africa, taking up a job in a five-star resort, Ocean Paradise Hotel & Resort, Zanzibar as an assistant chief engineer, and after a year, I became chief engineer there.
The Zanzibar Archipelago is located in the Indian Ocean, 15 miles off the coast of Tanzania. It is a breathtaking spot to escape from the world. Stone Town is the historical core of the city and the former capital of the Zanzibar Sultanate. It has a unique architecture and culture, so it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.
My job there was to carry out the working and maintenance work on all equipment, physical structures, and landscaping. There, I worked in a multi-cultural environment, as the team consisted of men and women from many different nationalities.
But I had to come back to India due to a family problem two years later. Since then, I have been working in Bhujbal Knowledge City, Nasik, as a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department.
While working there, I completed my master’s in business and finance management at the International Institute of Management and Technical Studies, Ahmedabad.
My works across multiple disciplines broadly address narratives of human experience. Being involved with different organizations allowed me to be better prepared for each new experience.
However, like many people, I soon became disillusioned with the reality of being ‘just another cog in the machine’. I do not end up thinking engineering is an end in itself, and I continue to experiment with myself.
I believe that it’s not always the smartest person in the room who makes the greatest impact, but the one who has the knowledge and the emotional intelligence to connect people and ideas.
I used to write poems when I was at sea. I started writing in March 2020, when the Government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown in an effort to contain the COVID-19 epidemic in the country. Since then, I have written ten books that are going to be published this year and next year.
I do not write books or articles for name, fame, or money. As it is, nobody can make a fortune by writing books or articles. This is just an attempt to make people aware and make them understand the game of the ruling class. I keep the price of the books very low so that everyone can afford them.
Erosion of Democracy
My first book, Erosion of Democracy was published in April this year.
It is available on — Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor, Tolino, Vivlio, Odilo, Gardeners, Borrow Box, Bibliotheca, Hoopla, Palace, Google books, Pothi, Notion Press etc.
This book is a first part of the series — DEMOCRACY, a series of three books. Democracy during the last decade has suffered a dramatic decline. The constitutional democracies are being overthrown and there is an increase in the regimes that retain the formal institutional trappings while flouting the norms and values on which constitutional democracies are based.
The forces of neo- liberalism are gaining ascendency in the world and the democratic public spheres are confronting a growing crisis. Politics has become an extension of war. The state supported corporate power seeks to reproduce and reward an orientation to the world infused with authoritarian ideas and principles.
Uncivil behaviour by elites and pathological mass communication reinforces each other. There is a public ripe to be polarized and exploited by demagogues and the media manipulators. Thus, any response must involve ordinary citizens, but are they up to the task?
If democracy is to have a future, all the various pedagogical apparatuses available must be transformed to support — critical thinking and a public culture capable of exerting a formative educational influence in favour of democratic freedom, justice, equality and fraternity.
The author argues that the solutions cannot be found only by strengthening the constitutional institutions, the democracy must also seek to reinvigorate its democratic aspirations. Democracy must be saved and protected to achieve security, stability and prosperity for the entire world.
Corporatocracy: Democracy be damned!
After selling over 100 copies in just two months of Erosion of Democracy, the second part named — Corporatocracy: Democracy be damned! was released on October 3rd.
It is available on — Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor, Tolino, Vivlio, Odilo, Gardeners, Borrow Box, Bibliotheca, Hoopla, Palace etc.
This book is the second in the Democracy series, a series of three books. Corporatocracy refers to the powerful group of people who run the world’s biggest corporations and the most powerful governments. The societies are ruled by a small minority of the wealthiest.
Of the world’s 100 largest economies, 71 are corporations while only 29 are countries. More than two-thirds of the richest 100 entities on the planet are corporations, not governments. So deep is the fusion between the corporations and the state that profits are now created largely by political means.
We are living in an era where the interplay between state and corporate power shapes the reality of international relations more than ever. Government is not really determined by the electorate, but rather by those with power, namely, firms.
Corporations not only have the political power to influence states, but also the economic clout to devastatingly affect a state’s economy should the state try to oppose an MNC. The economy no longer facilitates human society; humans live to serve the economy.
We have gone beyond industrialization and value-addition to a point where the rules are written by the financiers, and the finance industry. The power of people is being curtailed by the people with power.
‘Freedom’ has been reconfigured to refer to consumer choice rather than the ability to determine how to order one’s life.
The corporations procure more revenue than the government. Its global expansion and diversification seem to put state power back and has taken over the country on a geopolitical scale. The power of the state is limited and the MNCs are eroding states’ sovereignty.
MNCs determine what the governments should do; this shadowy control over the political and economic interests of the government makes the corporations more powerful than the governments. In order to kill the economic democracy, corporate power rigged the game.
Democracy has become enfeebled largely because companies have invested ever greater sums in lobbying, public relations, and even bribes and kickbacks, seeking laws that give them a competitive advantage over their rivals. Our political institutions have allowed themselves to be effectively occupied, or more accurately worsened by these anti-market (and anti-public) institutions.
I like making friends and am curious to know people of different nationalities and cultures. So, feel free to contact me at jdhopte@gmail.com.
I’m active on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Reddit, and LinkedIn; if you’re on any of those, say hello.
Once we’ve realized that we can be friends with people who don’t see the world precisely as we do, the real change can begin. Simply by being connected, we are one another’s hope. Combined, these individual relationships, fueled by love, can absolutely destroy every single barrier that separates us.
