Book Review: MY SHIPS SAILED THE SEAS BUT I STAYED ASHORE
Author's Note
Most of my reading on military history gravitates towards two extremes: the skies above and the blue seas. I write on how Captain N. S. Mohan Ram's My Ships Sailed the Seas But I Stayed Ashore offers a different perspective on maritime affairs: the people, institutions and engineering expertise that made India's warship-building ambitions possible.
The Book’s Author
Captain N.S. Mohan Ram, VSM (Retd), is a distinguished naval architect who later became a corporate leader. He is considered as one of the pioneers of warship design in India, giving him a legendary status amongst naval constructors.
An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur in Marine Engineering, he chose to join the Indian Navy and was commissioned in August 1959 in the Naval Architecture branch (then called Corps of Naval Constructors). Immediately after commissioning, he was sent to the United Kingdom in October 1959 to undertake a four-year Constructors course at Royal Naval Engineering College (RNEC) in Plymouth. His career also took him abroad to many countries. He also completed his MBA from the University of Delhi in 1973 with a Gold Medal.
He remained in the Navy until August 1980. Towards the last years in his Naval career, he was initially deputed to Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) when he decided to take voluntary retirement and joined the organisation as the head of the Design Department. After his stint at MDL, he joined Mukand Steel as General Manager of the Construction and Engineering division in March 1984. In October 1989, he became president of TVS Suzuki (later TVS Motor Company). He pioneered the development of the famous TVS Scooty.
Some of the key projects he worked on include the Nilgiri-class (ex-British Leander-class), the Godavari-class and Delhi-class, the Indian Coast Guard’s Vikram-class Offshore Patrol Vessels and the Magar-class Amphibious Landing Ship Tank (LST), amongst the varied other types of ships. He has been awarded FIE Foundation Prize from Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, then External Affairs minister in 1996, Distinguished Alumnus IIT award in August 2012 from then PM Dr. Manmohan Singh and Vaswik two months later from Shri Narendra Modi (then CM of Gujarat).
Initial Impressions
While most of my work has been focused on military history, I had a very short exposure to understanding how ships are designed, built and commissioned into the Indian Navy, when I was commissioned as an artist to produce a booklet for a frontline frigate recently. This got me interested in how India developed the capability to manufacture modern ships.
I happened to meet the author of the book at his residence in August 2026, being part of the production team involving him as the guest. Listening to him speak during the podcast gave me goosebumps. I had not read any of his books at that point, and the meeting prompted me to pick up one (he had authored five books by then). I was fortunate to find the Kindle edition of this book and purchased it.
You can listen to the Meluha Maritime Conversations podcast with Captain N.S. Mohan Ram, VSM (Retd) here:
Literary Style
BookVenture Publishing LLC published the book. It is 234 pages long, and is an easy read. The foreword of the book is by (now late) Rear Admiral J.J. Baxi, former CMD, Bharat Electronics Ltd. who himself is a very renowned figure who pioneered indigenisation in the defence sector. Also included are short blurbs on the author and the book by (now late) Vice Admiral PJ Jacob (former Vice Chief of Naval Staff), Rear Admiral Mohan Raman, (Retd), a contemporary of the author, Venu Srinivasan, Chairman Sundaram Clayton Group, Chairman emeritus TVS Motor Company Limited and Dr. Mahesh Rangarjan, Historian, Professor Ashoka University.
The book is very well written, with an amazing sense of humour. It is autobiographical in nature and covers the author’s journey from his teenage days to his life after retirement from the Indian Navy. The style of writing is light-on-your-feet, making something as sophisticated as warship design and hydrodynamics easy to understand. Readers will find this book very ‘infotaining’. Each page has a joke to laugh about and each chapter has a life lesson embedded into it!
Review & Some Noteworthy Narrations
The book offers a valuable account of how the Indian Navy indigenously developed its design and engineering capabilities through the 1960s, laying foundation to what’s palpably one of the most robust warshipbuilding ecosystems in the world. Apart from the author’s biography itself, the reader also gets to learn various new concepts about life, right from hydrodynamics to management to even many foreign cultures.
Most of the time, people (including myself) see the navy as only officers and sailors who live and work aboard ships/submarines and are specialists in those respective domains. However, this book (along with the above attached interview) has changed that perception. The Indian Navy is not just fighting and maintaining security at sea. It also has its own department to research, design and overlook the construction of warships. This department is known as the Warship Design Bureau, formerly the Directorate of Naval Design (DND).
While I had a very faint idea, it wasn’t until I met the author and read the book, that I understood that the Indian Navy has a separate intake scheme for constructors and engineers, called the Naval Architecture Branch. This book gives a good understanding on how this branch works. Further, as a history buff and an Indian, reading through this book will make one’s chest swell with pride, seeing how far our armed forces, particularly the Navy have evolved in terms of indigenous manufacturing capability!
The book shares some interesting tidbits on topics such as evaluation of the Pulicat-class patrol vessels, design and development of the Nilgiri, Godavari and Delhi-classes, which would certainly catch the interest of maritime history enthusiasts.
One of the anecdotes I really liked from the book was how then Lt Cdr Kalidas and the author also contributed ‘clandestinely’ to the war effort in 1971. The two officers posed as civilian members of a certain non-combatant Government body to procure fast boats, then retrofit them with machine guns. These boats would then be supplied to the Mukti Bahini resistance in the Eastern Front. The duo travelled to countries in East Asia, such as Hong Kong (then a British Colony), Singapore and South Vietnam, from where they procured two boats. Interested readers will have to consult the book for the full account… and even that episode is not free from the author’s touch of humour!
Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book that time passed by. It is a fantastic balance of both technical aspects of warship design and life in the navy, explained in very lucid writing.
On a personal note, some important lessons I learnt from this book include developing the ability of foresight, nurturing ambitions to achieve what one sets out to do, being ingenious and proactive at all stages of life. Most importantly, cultivating the habit of reading and writing more. The book encourages readers to start self-development and exploring through travel, hobbies and new skills, importantly to build interpersonal skills.
The author has emphasised throughout how maintaining a diary has helped him in drafting the book, and its positives are very noticeable. The book is rich in detail, and has no ambiguity. On completion of the book, readers get a sense of fulfilment, and that they have understood the author’s life and his journey very intimately.
This is a highly recommended read. In case one wishes to get a gist of how the author would have written the book (beyond this book review), it is also strongly encouraged that they watch/listen to Maritime Conversations Podcast Episode with Captain N.S. Mohan Ram, VSM (Retd) [Link attached above].
You can buy Captain N.S. Mohan Ram’s book My Ships Sailed the Seas but I Stayed Ashore on Amazon from the link here: https://link.amazon/B0iy27NSY
Arjun Prakash Iyer
Arjun Prakash Iyer is a 24 year old Research Scholar under the Unni Kartha Chair of Excellence (UKCOE), chaired by CAPSS. A graduate in Journalism, he studies contemporary defence issues through the lens of military history and is currently researching the role and service history of the MiG-23 and MiG-27 in the IAF. He is also a research associate at Meluha Maritime.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
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