Ceri-Anne Fidler, in her doctoral thesis, describes how food was used to oppress Indian sailors on colonial ships.
“The lascar was always sallow. It didn’t helpthat his name anagrammed rascal. He carrieda whiff of scurvy, a hint of rats in the hold,hulls battered by typhoons.”
These words from a poem by Ranjit Hoskote are a vivid summation of the life of lascars, the wretched seafarers from the Indian subcontinent who were employed on European ships from the 16th century until the mid-2...
