Prologue to ‘Going Solo’

Author details:  My name is Shivi Garg. I’m from 5A, Manthan school, Tellapur. I like to play, sing, and dance. When I grow up I would want to become a doctor. While being a doctor I would help everyone and cure them.
 

  The ship was carrying Roald Dahl out from England to Africa. More English than English, more Scottish than Scotts, they were the craziest bunch of people Roald Dahl had ever met. Many years ago in Autumn, this ship was an old paint- peeling tub of a thousand tons, with a tall funnel which rattled the tea cups. In 1983 a journey was full of stepping stones.

  If they worked in east Africa their sentences were sprinkled with Swahili words, and if they lived in India then all manner dialects were intermingled. This ship weighing nine thousand, and sixty-five tons, had a vibrating engine. This ship was called the SS MANTOLA. It would take two weeks to go somewhere, whereas nowadays, it takes few hours and you would stop nowhere.

 Roald Dahl knew nothing of what was going to happen. He could die or he could make an attempt to survive the disaster that was yet to come.