Crouched in an LTTE bunker on the Sri Lankan coast, Captain B Navindra Karkera thought his end was near. A few miles into the sea, two Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets swooped down and bombarded his ship, and artillery shells exploded around him.

``I feel like I've been reborn,'' Captain Karkera said, speaking to Express Newsline from his flat at Ninth Cross Road, Chembur. ``I was shattered when I heard his ship had been bombed,'' his wife Prashant adds.

Karkera and his chief officer Ramesh Singh flew into Mumbai today from Chennai. The rest of his crew are expected in the city on Friday morning.

Helming the Sri Lankan-flagged M V Princess Kash, Karkera was on his way to deliver a consignment of motor vehicles and general cargo from Colombo to the northern port of Point Pedro.

Early on August 14, the 6500-tonne vessel wassteaming towards Point Pedro when he received a radio message from what he thought was the Sri Lankan navy, asking him to reduce speed and drop his ladder.

A speedboat appeared out of the darkness and before anyone on board the ship could react, 25 heavily armed `Sea Tigers' had clambered on board, screaming and wildly firing AK-47s in the air.

``They were young, between 15 and 18 years old, but very aggressive. But I think they were as scared as we were,'' the captain recalled. Two squad members who stood out from the plainclothes LTTE men were the feared Black Tigers, the LTTE's suicide bomber squad. ``They had explosives strapped around, like lifejackets,'' the captain said.

In a few minutes, the Tigers' squad, which included two women, had most of the crew members on the deck trussed up, even as they ransacked the ship of valuables.

Announcing that the ship had been hijacked, the LTTE squad radioed the Sri Lankan navy that they would blow up the ship if they were intercepted. The ship's course wasaltered towards the Tiger bastion of Mullaitivu, some 30 nautical miles away. The ship arrived at Mullaitivu at around 6.30 am on Independence Day. ``It's ironic. Here was our country celebrating its golden jubilee of independence, while we wondered if we would make it out of this ordeal alive,'' Captain Karkera said. A mile off the coast, the ship was received by a flotilla of nearly a dozen Sea Tiger boats. The Tigers swiftly began unloading the vessel's cargo of 250 Kinetic Honda scooters before an unknown broadcast informed the ship that they would be bombed by the Sri Lankan air force. The Tigers, who had almost resolved to die with the ship, finally heeded the captain's pleas to abandon ship. The ship was emptied of all personnel when the bombing began hours later. Running out of his bunker which was destroyed moments later, Karkera had one last look at the smouldering hulk of his ship. ``It brought tears to my eyes,'' he said.

Forty-six-year-old Karkera, who has been in the merchant navy for over 20years, then had a brief taste of what it meant to be an LTTE guerilla. ``Amid the ferocious din of battle, we were constantly moved between hideouts and guest houses to avoid the Sri Lankan army for two days.''

The adventure ended when the Indian crew were finally handed over the Red Cross on Monday morning and were allowed to fly back home two days later.