Don't Ask Any Old Bloke for Directions
I have not read a travelogue in a long time, the last one I read was motor cycle dairies. After reading a series of boring books in the last couple of months, I was looking for an exciting travelogue thats based in India. After a quick research I picked up this book published by Penguin Books, “Don’t Ask Any Old Bloke For Directions” by P G Tenzing. I normally don’t buy books on impulse, I keep it in my wish list for a few weeks and if my urge to buy has not subsided by then I will go ahead and buy it. The reason being that I have bought quite a few books on impulse and most of them have turned out to be duds but after reading the back cover of this book I could not resist. How could anyone resist a story of an Indian bureaucrat aged 43, with 20 years of service who decides to leave the service one fine day and go on a motor cycle journey for nine months criss-crossing the country for 25000 Kms.
No writer or author can give us a perspective of real India like bureaucrats and politicians can. I was not disappointed, I loved P G Tenzing’s take on real India and its people. He has an uncanny knack of measuring up people and keen eye for their behavior. The books starts off on a great note and sets high expectations. Tenzing’s take on why he chose to quit job and travel are unique. He decides to quit his job, buy an Enfield Thunderbird and heads out on a journey to nowhere, to do his own thing, to answer to nobody, to look neither back nor forward.
Long journey by itself is a form of meditation. You have to be there in the moment. You cannot dream of the future or regurgitate the past for too long or you are liable to be “ambulanced”. Your mind is spared quotidian cares, and gets the rest it so badly deserves.
I also loved his humorous take on politics, bureaucracy and politicians of this country.
You don’t argue with holy cows. Gandhi and national integration – it doesn’t get holier than that.
The book kind of fizzles out in the later stages, the author does not get beyond the frivolous cheap jokes and his mechanics. Every chapter promises a lot in the beginning and every time you expect some in-depth analysis the author gets away without explaining the motive of certain characters and situations. He brings in far too may characters he met on the road in to the book which takes away the punch from this book.
The humor in the book keeps you engaged to move on and I loved his narration of his journey through his home state Sikkim, Nepal, Ladakh and Bodhgaya, his take on spirituality, karmic connections, Buddhism and meditation. Overall I felt it was worth a read. One would definitely like Tenzings humorous take on life and his attitude towards various situations in general.
Tenzing finally takes a break from his travel adventure and settles down somewhere in remote Nepal with a poor family to pen down his thoughts on leaving the service and travelling across the country for nine months.
Living with them has made me rethink my many established idiocies and realize that all those high-sounding spiritual, psychological and emotional arguments we have the luxury to engage in, in our temperature-controlled drawing rooms, take a very low backseat indeed when you are existing – subsisting – day to day.
I was not planning on blogging about this book, I had not heard about the book or the author ten days back. I picked up this book by chance and while I was half-way through this book I came across this terrible news “Officer who quit IAS to tour India dies“. I kind of felt the “Karmic Connection” with him and decided to pen down my thoughts as a tribute. The guy decides to quit job in 2007, under takes a trip for nine months and publishes a book in 2009 and he is gone in 2010, probably he did the right thing by following his heart.
Ending the post with P G Tenzing’s take on death, may his soul rest in peace.
“So when I started my search for life’s meaning, death was a significant part of the equation. I am nowhere near understanding anything, but am at this point comfortable with the idea of death. It happens. Shit happens.”
