It was not a very appropriate time to share a reading experience. And it did not turn out to be so either. Sheela Thomas, secretary to the Chief Minister, only took some time off to talk to about P G Tenzing, a friend who always followed his heart - when he crash-landed into the Civil Services at age 22, when he waded through the bureaucratic labyrinth relying on his own instincts to function as a beacon light, when he junked the cozy IAS moorings to set off on an Enfield Thunderbird for those miles he had to go before he slept.
“The book is a reflection of the man he was, someone who took life head on and made inconveniences and difficulties seem like enjoyable escapades. A journey on a bike all around the country will not be all about fun, but he talks about things like the bike needing a repair as if it was part of the fun he was on the look out for.”
The Sikkim-born Palden Gyatso Tenzing, an officer in the Kerala cadre, happened to get acquainted with Sheela Thomas when they served as sub collectors in the neighbouring sub-divisions of Chengannur and Adoor. They became family friends who visited each other whenever they had a chance. When he was posted in Thiruvananthapuram in 2005, he chose to live in the same apartment as that of the Thomas family. “His voluntary retirement came as a bolt from the blue, many of us friends tried to dissuade him saying that it was a loss to the Civil Services and the State.”
But Tenzing was all set to dive into the nomad’s life that he had planned on after stripping himself of the IAS tags. “When he bought the Enfield, he was so excited about it. Packing the bare essentials in a knapsack, he was off, riding up through the East coast.”
Penguin Books, who sniffed a story in the crazy outing of a 43-year-old ex-civil servant, coaxed Tenzing into penning a travelogue. But Sheela Thomas would prefer not to call Don’t Ask Any Old Bloke For Direction as a travelogue, “I think the focus is more on people and his own attitude to life that is reflected through the experiences he encounters.” It sure has to be, for Tenzing called his biking endeavour as a karmic journey, in search of ‘Tamzi’, the sacred bond between people, a concept instilled in him by the Buddhist traditions that he grew up in.
The book chronicles his nine-month long journey, covering 25,320 kilometers “without a pre-planned route or direction.” He drove from Kerala across Tamil Nadu and up the east coast to Sikkim and Assam, then through Nepal to Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh, back to Sikkim and through the middle of the country to Kerala again, then up the west coast to Mumbai. On the way, he encountered “numerous waiters and mechanics — fleeting human interactions and connections that seemed pre-ordained.” He slows down at times to take pot-shots at bureaucracy and politics, and to poke fun at friends and family, the Thomases being the butt of his jokes on several pages.
“He used to stay over at our place when he visited Kerala after his resignation. He liked Kerala very much and used to say he would have settled down here had it not been so far away from Sikkim”. The journey through Sikkim, his home state, is perhaps the most engaging part of the book. “He had a very deep attachment with his ancestral home in Mankan where his mother lives. He had supported the running of a school (Taktse International School), and an orphanage, but never wished to make it public. Just like he never talked to any of us about the cancer that was eating into his life…, ‘’Sheela Thomas paused.
The 218 pages, with a shot of his Bullet on the cover and no picture of the author anywhere, is infused with a dark humour that tones up his views on life and death, friendship and love. The same dark humour that made him remark to Thomas before leaving their house on his last visit to Kerala, - I will come back to Kerala three times again, twice for the marriage of your two children and then for your funeral. Tenzing paused and then added, “who knows, may be you will come for my funeral first.” Sheela Thomas and her husband must have left for P G Tenzing’s funeral by the time Bookie pays this tribute to the brave heart.
aswathy@expressbuzz.com
(The weekly column brings you the favourite read of the who’s who of the society)
