The Titanic and the damn “My Heart will go on”

I have been taught the tricks to handle the weather by the concierge at the Hilton, and I now understand a part of this city’s glorious tryst with linen. I still have to see the patch of land that is an inseparable part of Belfast’s modern history. The land that set the scene to one of the most-told stories of our times.

I have had a cup of steaming coffee from the St George’s market and stepped out into the grey afternoon. Snowfall seemed imminent, but for now it seemed to hold back. My next stop is the last one for the day, before I get back to the hotel.

The destination is a place, two miles from St George’s market, where history was created almost a 100 years ago.

The unsinkable Titanic

On a gray Belfast morning in April 1912, the Titanic eased herself away from the Harland and Wolff shipyard, her vast hull gliding into the River Lagan. H&W was one of the biggest employers of labor in Ireland those days. The Titanic, deemed unsinkable by them, was the most ambitious of their projects. It was their magnum opus.

The short voyage from Belfast to Southampton, from where the first voyage was to start, was not about speed or spectacle, but ceremony. As the Titanic passed familiar shores, inside it the corridors gleamed, chandeliers waited unlit, and cabins stood empty, ready for stories to be told about. Belfast was now, well and truly, a part of this history.

But then, it turned out to be a history tainted by unfathomable tragedy. On its maiden journey from Southampton to New York, it hit an iceberg and tragically sank in the North Atlantic waters. A story that still catches the imagination of all around the world.

Hundred years on, at the grounds where crowds had gathered to see the Titanic off to Southampton stands a museum- The Titanic museum.

The museum looks like a couple of shards of glass rammed into the ground. Even on this gray day, its angular facade catches light and makes it look like ice. Inside this stunning building is a recreation of the Titanic, complete with the decks, the quarters and the dim underbelly. The audio tells the story as you go along. Shouted orders, shrieks, and the soft music all come together.

It was like most of the modern-day museums one sees. Great attention to detail, brilliant maintenance, and a professional touch everywhere. A great place to visit.

Out of the museum and with about half an hour at hand, I sit on a bench on the edge of the grassy patch that is next to the very spot from where the Titanic was tugged into the Lagan a century ago. There is absolute silence around. The sky is still moody, and snow is still hesitant to fall, almost as if waiting for a cue. In the distance, I can see the top of a few hills. Snow from the last few days has settled around the peaks of these hills. These, I realized, were the very mountains which sent that spine-tingling wind down into the town.

The human angle from a fellow human

I waited for a few more minutes, soaking in the scene, and then decided to hail a taxi. A few minutes later, one stopped at the edge of the footpath around the dry dock. I got in, and we were off. A few hundred meters into the drive, the middle-aged driver turned to me and asked if I liked the museum. I told him I thought it was a great place.

With a wry smile, he said..

It is ironic, mate, if the ship had completed its journey and not sunk, I would not be driving you from the museum to the hotel today. Would I?

He couldn’t have been more spot on when one thinks of it.

The way the Titanic is spoken about today is probably a bit too insensitive. The fact that the unsinkable sank is the headline. A fictional, mawkish romance between the unequal is celebrated courtesy of Hollywood. Every time some woolly-headed human anywhere in the world gets to the bow of a boat, the arms are stretched out mimicking the Kate Winslet scene. Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” became the anthem of that borrowed grief, playing on loop long after the credits rolled.

But as my cab driver said, there would be none of these if the Titanic had not run into an iceberg that fateful night.

We should spare a thought for the 1500 or more who lost their lives in those icy waters, screaming and shrieking as the fathomless ocean swallowed them up. There was no song and dance after all that; it was just the darkness of the night sky, the whisper of the waves, and the eerie silence that death leaves behind.

None of the damn “My Heart Will Go On” stuff. Think of the arms that were stretched out asking for help and the hearts that were broken.

With this unsettling thought in my mind, I alighted from the cab at the hotel front. It was getting dark and gloomy, and as if on cue, the snow started to fall.

It was a heck of a day………Phew.

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Sudhir Bhattathiripad

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