FEBRUARY 2014

POINT
OUT
: FLYING HIGH
AROUND THE WORLD
ON SEA WATERS
» SURYA GANGADHARAN
The other day an email caught
my eye: It was a release from the
Navy PRO’s office, informing that
the Indian Navy had “launched”
a young woman officer on the sail ship
Mhadei. She is the first of a planned all
woman crew, that hopefully will “sail the
seven seas” before long.
It reminded me of the question asked
by none other than Lt. Cdr. Abhilash
Tomy, who sailed
non-stop around the
world only last year.
“Why would anyone
spend half a year
at sea, all alone?”
His answer: “That’s
a perfectly natural
question, from someone
who’s never sailed.
I have friends who asked
me that. I’ve taken them out
to sea for a while and they always
come back completely
changed. Look at me,
I’ve always thought of
“After I came back, Tinkle comics
put a photo of me on their
latest issue. It was their first
photographic cover ever. That was
cool”
it the other way around. How would I ever
have lived, without sailing on this trip.”
As Tomy described it, “You go out to
sea to be wowed by the magical force of
nature. To appreciate how small you are
before it. You go out to sea to enjoy the
ride. And if you come out alive, be thankful
for it.”
Tomy, in his early 30s, is actually a
navy pilot flying the Dornier aircraft. Otherwise,
he’s like the others of his generation.
He’s into Facebook and Twitter, a voracious
reader, picking up everything from
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred
Years of Solitude to Will Durant’s Story of
Philosophy, Maxim Gorky’s The Mother
and Black Swan, even Tinkle comics,
which are the “companions” on his voyage.
“After I came back, Tinkle comics put
a photo of me on their latest issue. It was
their first photographic cover ever. That
was cool,” he recalled and there’s more
happening in his life.
“There’s a documentary being talked
about, with an international TV channel,”
Tomy said. “A book, perhaps in the next
two-three years. There are kids out there
who now know the Indian Navy does
some really far out stuff. They’re going to
want to join the Navy themselves.”
So this navy guy is a celebrity although
an understated one. He doesn’t live his
celebrity-hood, nor is it something he
talks about all the time. The way he sees it,
he has sailed around the world but there’s
a whole life waiting to be lived with lots
more to do. This is just a beginning and he
enjoys that feeling.
So until the next adventure, wherever
it takes him, Tomy is content being the
Indian Naval officer, flying his Dornier,
enjoying the camaraderie of the uniform.
And when he’s at home in Cochin, he
sleeps late and wakes up to the smell of his
mother’s coffee.
Life couldn’t be better.
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FEBRUARY 2014