The last time Kandanadu, Udayamperoor, made international headlines was in the 16th century. A small town with large bungalows, it’s a half hour bus ride from Cochin Airport in Kerala. But in 1599, it was a remote forest hamlet, one which most people could get to only by boat. Yet, it made history.



Christians in Kerala and adjoining areas learnt their faith from the teachings of St Thomas, in the first century AD. The world had changed dramatically by the time Portugal conquered Goa. Goaded on by both politics and religion, the new rulers summoned Indian Christians to Udayamperoor (Diamper) and rudely ordered them to adopt new styles of worship.



It sparked off a resistance that rang alarm bells everywhere from the Middle East to Europe. For years thereafter, ships bore men and missives from the world over to Goa, all seeking a solution to the Udayamperoor problem. Today churches from four different denominations stand almost cheek by jowl in the village – silent reminders of an ancient clash of civilizations.



Centuries later, a man came to Kandanadu, Udayamperoor, that little forest hamlet once served only by boat, to visit his parents. He probably knew nothing of the history of the place. But he did sail around the world, on a boat of his own. This is his story.



“I never pray. I believe God’s plans are for the best. It’s silly of us to keep bothering him with our incessant, small requests.”



Interesting. Coming from a man who swung from a 75-foot-high mast, on a fiberglass boat bucking like a crazed horse at the rodeo. Four thousand kilometers from land, with a torn sail. Alone, in the middle of a foaming ocean.



For 34-year-old Abhilash Tomy, it was just another day at work. He was busy setting a record – going around the world by sea. He covered more than 40,000 kilometers in five months, without ever touching land or meeting people. For power, he only had the wind in his sails – no motors. He is the sole Indian and the second Asian in the world to do the trip non-stop. And live to tell the tale.



“Why would anyone spend half an year at sea, all alone? 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. See me, I’ve always thought of it the other way around. How would I ever have lived, WITHOUT sailing on this trip”, says Abhilash.



Ironically, he wasn’t trained to be a sailor. Lt Cdr Abhilash Tomy flies Dornier 228 airplanes for the Indian Navy. In times of war, these machines fan out over the coastline, looking for enemy ships lurking near Indian ports and shipping lanes. Once found, they call in the cavalry, either missile tipped aircraft or ships with torpedoes.



But much before he took to the skies, Abhilash had already fallen in love with the ocean. Even as a seven year old, he was taking out makeshift rafts out into the sea, at the naval base in Cochin where his father, Lt Cdr (Retd) Valliara Chacko Tomy was posted. He capsized most of them, his father says – but he’d never give up.



In 2000, Abhilash joined the Indian Navy. In 2008, he helped out with the Volvo Ocean Race, as international teams sailed into Port Kochi. In 2009, he managed logistics and shore support for Cdr Dilip Donde, as he sailed around the world aboard the INSV Mhadei. The 56-feet-long Mhadei was built entirely in India, something the Indian Navy is very proud of.



There’s a story to the Mhadei too. It’s named after the River Mandovi, in Goa. It was made by Ratnakar Dandekar’s Aquarius Fibreglass, a Goan company that had never made a huge sailboat before. The design was bought from a foreign firm. But boats of that design had never gone around the world non-stop before.



Seamen say making a sailboat is a bit of an art. The body needs to be strong enough to withstand the huge forces the wind can come up with. Yet, light and flexible enough to use those forces to slice through the water. The Mhadei was built with red cedar wood, encased inside layers of fiberglass.



Says Tomy, “On an earlier trip, the boat required a few minor repairs. So a foreign expert was called in, one used to working with fiberglass boats. Confident it wouldn’t take very long, he sauntered in, unpacked his tools, fixed his bit and tried to drill into the fiberglass. By the time he finished, hours later, he’d worn out a few bits. It wasn’t something he was used to. That boat is tough. She’s a testimony to what Indian boat builders can do, when they put their minds to it.”



Cdr Donde took 273 days to complete his trip and stopped four times - in Australia, New Zealand, the Falkland Islands and South Africa. This trip was officially called Sagar Parikrama 1 by the Navy.



In 2011, Tomy trained with Donde as they competed in the Cape2Rio 2011, a race from Africa to South America. That was when they first dreamt up Sagar Parikrama 2, a plan for a solo, non-stop trip around the world. Soon, the Navy realized the idea could do wonders for its image.



“In just five months, we got 1 crore subscribers on my Facebook page. God knows how many views on YouTube, on Picassa and on my blog. There’s a documentary being talked about, with an international TV channel. A book, in perhaps 2-3 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”, smiles Abhilash.



The far out stuff, isn’t an exaggeration. There’s a video of him playing Spiderman on his boat’s 75 foot mast – actually, it’s him repairing a shredded rope, in the middle of a choppy ocean. Then there was the time the toilet malfunctioned, spewing 100 liters of sewage back into the boat – he bailed it all out by hand. The boat’s water purifier conked off, leaving him just a few bottles of drinking water for three weeks. He improvised, drinking rain water instead.



On the stretch between New Zealand and South America, he was so far from land that helicopters wouldn’t be able to reach him in case of an accident. And airplanes wouldn’t be able to winch him up. On the stretch from Mauritius to Mumbai, there was the very real threat of pirates.



“You don’t go out into the sea, to master it. Or tame it. To battle your inner demons. Or prove that you’re a man. You try that and you’ll end up dead. 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, to be thankful for it”, says Abhilash.



With no stopovers planned, food could have become a problem for Tomy. But it didn’t, thanks to rigorous planning.



Specially treated food was sourced from the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO)'s Defence Food Research Laboratory in Mysore. More supplies came from New Zealand. Meera Donde, Cdr Donde's mother sent Abhilash poha and dried prawns. Abhilash himself packed 50 cans of soft drinks.



On his birthday on February 5, Abhilash celebrated with ice cream, apricot crumble, fresh apple, kheer, halwa and DRDO-supplied roti and dal. Not bad, for a man who’d learnt to cook just over a year back.



But none of the adventures he had, matched up to an invisible, ever-present danger. Alone on the boat, with no one to help him navigate, Abhilash followed what’s called a Polyphasic Sleep Pattern. He’d sleep for fifteen minutes, then wake up and navigate for fifteen. The idea is to rest the body, without drifting off course entirely.



But as the days slowly tick by, such dreamless sleep starts playing tricks on people’s brains. “There are entire books written on the hallucinations you could start having”, says Abhilash. “If you’re travelling alone and you’re tired, you’d hallucinate about a ship suddenly drawing alongside and people boarding your boat. For the rest of the journey, they’d navigate your boat, cook your food, make your bed, talk to you and take care of you. The only problem is, none of them would be real. You’d drift off course, starve or even sink. And if real people ever actually find you, you’d still be talking to and laughing with your imaginary crew. You’d be completely mad”.



For most of his trip, Abhilash managed to stay clear of such dangers. He had regular location reports to file, emails to answer and a blog and networking sites to update. He was operating seven cameras alone – five video and two still cameras to catalogue his trip. He had a pile of books to read, 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.



But for almost three days in the Antarctic Ocean, Abhilash Tomy didn’t sleep at all. Icebergs lurked in the deceptively calm waters. Did he hallucinate in those days? He nods, broods. And refuses to talk too much about it. He’d kept a diary of his thoughts on the entire trip. But he threw it overboard before reaching land. What his dreams were, only the ocean knows. But they definitely were nothing like anything from the Life of Pi.



When he came back to India in April, Tomy was already a hero. The President himself welcomed him back. The media clamoured for interviews. On the eve of Independence Day, he was conferred the Kirti Chakra, India’s second highest peacetime gallantry award. In September, he won the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award for Sailing.



But for all his globe-trotting exploits, in person, Abhilash comes across as the guy next door. He enjoys long drives, loves his mother Valsamma’s coffee, plays the guitar, and on off-duty days sleeps late. He’s tall and a nautical beard. But he’s not intimidating – with gentle eyes, an easy laugh and a chatty style. Actually, just about right for a role in Malayalam art house cinema.



And he has the philosophy to match. “You go to any religious place – a church, a temple, a mosque – and they’re all yelling and screaming. They’re all shouting out prayers, trying to get God to do something. What do you do if God doesn’t respond? Do you then take out God from your scheme of things? Do you abandon God?”



“If you want something done, go out and do it. If it’s meant to be, it will happen. Don’t keep whining. I meditate and do yoga often. But it’s nothing like the concept of religion that most people have.”



And then suddenly, the philosophy is gone and he’s joking around again. “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 grins.



Jaimon Joseph is a multimedia journalist who reports on science, technology, defence and international affairs. Follow him at https://twitter.com/jaithemon































































































































