Furniture from old ships

Big merchant ships, deep-sea oil tankers, lighters, big hulk cargo carriers with a draft enough to sink the twin towers, some weighing in the range of 38000 to 50000 tonnages, that is vessels of every type and size do become old, worn out, and difficult for sailing, and then they are all purchased from agencies in Singapore, or at Rotterdam, or at Copenhagen at a cheaper bargain and then brought to the Chittagong sea-coast for dismantling.

The common phrase used in Chittagong for this undoing of the vessels is called ship breaking, and it's an amazing process if you happen to watch it.

That was philosophical, but what is economically important is that ship-breaking industry has been supplying the raw material for all kinds of re-rolling industries, and also a major furniture-procuring source.

The re-rolling mills run by using the scraps of the dismantled ships. First the scraps are put into the furnace to produce sheets, and then the sheets are processed in the mill for making iron rods, both plain and wrought. The coil rods, measuring three-thread width, I believe, are also made of ship scraps, or they may have been imported.

The other use of the dismantled ships is the lot of furniture each ship provides. In fact, before a ship is grounded for dismantling, an auction is bidden to sell off its total furniture in a lot, which includes doors, windows, bathroom doors, beds, chest of drawers, shelves, and in the bathroom accessories tabs, bathtubs, basins; in the kitchen things all kinds of porcelain cups and plates and dishes, and sinks, and basins; in the security section door locks, and in the lighting section lampshades, etc.

The ship furniture is simple in design, light in weight, but cute. Their colour is modest, ranging from a light brown to light yellow. Housewives are crazy for buying them. The roadside shops storing and selling the ship furniture can be seen starting from Fauzder Hat to Pahartali a stretch of 10 miles. Initially it was good honest business. But now corruption has entered, and fake furniture by applying formica and all that is reported to be sold. That is bad.

An original ship bed is now difficult to be found. The businessmen now have redesigned the bed to conform to our ugly traditional taste, and they have also coated it in teak colour removing the original sophisticated white-bony colour. Besides, they have also used pegs in the joints to make it look as ugly as possible.

So the quality of the ship furniture has dropped, and so has the demand for it.