The Queen and a Scorpion

The Queen Mary was an ocean liner plying the North Atlantic in the 1930s. It catered to partying heads of states, business moguls, celebrities and such people. Sans the iceberg, it’s in the same league as the Titanic. We checked the view deck, the Captain’s chamber, the gulley, boiler rooms, ballroom and the black and white photos of its loyal patrons. We imagined the lavish parties while munching on sumptuous sour dough and clam chowder. For classification purposes, the ship is categorized not as it is, a ship, (much less, as an ocean going vessel) but as a building! It has long been stripped of its propellers and engines, and decommissioned several decades ago. The Queen Mary now serves as a hotel and museum at Long Beach in California.

When we came out there was an ongoing weightlifting competition covered by ESPN, but I was drawn more to a shop selling KGB flasks and memorabilia of the once mighty Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). And take this: Right beside the Queen Mary was the Scorpion, a Russian attack submarine! This sub is of the Foxtrot class which is among the biggest non-nuclear submarines in the world! It is shaped like a fat stick; equipments, wires, torpedoes, are slang, rigged and ran along its length. The bunk beds are so thin you can only sleep on it one way – sideways! Hollywood war films glorify the sub, but in the heat of things, I can imagine the pungent kitchen smell floating in the gulley and stinking soldiers and technicians yelling at each other. The Scorpion, like other war machines are a blight on civilization, but they make good tourist attractions especially when moored side by side an equally distinguished ship, the Queen Mary.