Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan has lent his voice to India's often-overlooked seafaring community, telling Fleet Management Ltd's global workforce that "you make the world move" during a special tribute video and a visit to the company's Mumbai office on Monday.
The message from Pathan arrives as Fleet Management, one of the world's largest independent ship management companies, continues expanding its seafarer welfare programmes for a global workforce of more than 27,000 seafarers.
Pathan drew parallels between international cricket and life at sea, saying that seafaring, like professional sport, demands responsibility, teamwork and the ability to perform under pressure every single day, adding that most everyday goods reach people only because of the work seafarers do.
During his visit to Fleet Management's Andheri office, Pathan also met cadets from the International Maritime Institute (IMI), the company's maritime training arm, discussing composure, discipline and learning from setbacks, themes he said apply equally to cricket dressing rooms and ship bridges.
The company said that this was part of Fleet Management's broader push to strengthen India's maritime talent pipeline. The firm and IMI participated in recent national platforms such as India Maritime Week and the ITF Seafarer Expo in Mumbai, which drew over 4,000 members of India's maritime community earlier this year, given the Centre's own maritime ambitions.
Maritime India Vision aims to position India among the world's top five maritime nations by 2047 through investments in seafarer welfare, training and fleet expansion. Pathan's message, though a private-sector gesture, seems to be part of a wider national conversation about recognising and retaining India's seafaring workforce, which remains one of the largest sources of skilled maritime labour globally.
