Last Thursday I had an unusual and also unlikely visitor. His name was Tomasz Poplawski. He is not from Russia as his last name may suggest or the spelling of his first name may indicate. He is actually from Poland but immigrated to Canada in 1983 as a young boy with his parents and sister. In fact, they were actually fleeing from the communist Poland via Holland seeking refuge in Canada. When I asked how his father could manage to escape from communist Poland, he had an interesting way of narrating it. "It is all because of our good Karma. It helped us to leave Poland. Being a communist country it was not a happy place to live socially, politically and economically. My father was a doctor of psychology and was working with the government and as such had some goodwill among the communist partymen and officers," he says. So, under the pretext of meeting his family people in Holland, his father was allowed to go to Holland with his family. Thereafter, it was easy for them to find their own way and seek refuge in any country. It appears, his father gave his wife and children three choices to choose the country for immigration Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They opted for Canada.

Tomasz says his father was doing a lot of charity work and in fact the old man was an aspiring yogi. "I am happy I was born into a yogi’s house," he says. In fact, he has an Indian connection which goes back to 1960s. His father's sister, who was a journalist in Poland, came to India in 1960 and almost immediately fell in love with the country. Who will not fall in love with a free country? Look at Muslim terrorists. Probably, it was through his aunt his father came to know of yoga and also the Hindu holy book Bhagavadgita. Tomasz says, "We took to meditation like a yogi and used to get lost in God, forgetting everything else."

He was born into a Catholic Christian family in Poland in 1973. At age 17 he left school and Canada, went to London and studied in the best cooking school to become a French chef. Thereafter, he worked for 13 years as a chef in Europe and Canada. A year before he left Canada at age 16, his father gave him a small pocket size Bhagavadgita in English and told his son to go back to Bhagavadgita whenever he was in doubt and difficulties. "This is one book my dear son you can really recommend," was his parting advice. For 13 long years he worked as a chef carrying with him the Bhagavadgita and came to India for the first time in 1999, at age 25, carrying the same Gita. His destination was Varanasi. He became a vegetarian. Tomasz is married to Tamara who is also a pure vegetarian and hails from Canada. She is also here in Mysore studying yoga with the renowned yoga master Pattabhi Jois.

After four months in Varanasi (Kashi), he moved south, which he says is an area of “peace and order”. He uses Kannada words to say this in his own accent “Samaadhana Saanthi”. Tomasz says he has read the “Book of Wisdom” by Osho Rajneesh, which shook him from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. He says, Rajneesh destroyed my comfortable cocoon life. After reading his book I was more than ever convinced about the truth of what another yoga master now in Pune, B. K. S. Iyengar has said, “A good book is better than a mediocre teacher”. At this point Tomasz revealed that he had also taken a master’s in Eastern studies and journalism. He said that he would be leaving for Mt. Kailash on 29th of this month and would carry with him, "a little bit of Chamundi (Hill)" and leave it at Mt. Kailash. I suggest that he also bring a little bit of Mt. Kailash and leave it at Chamundi (Hill). When I asked what prompts him to pursue the path he is pursuing in India, his cryptic answer with a benign smile was, "Samskara from my other life." A bombast, He says actually he came to Mysore in pursuit of yoga along with his wife but he is staying on for the sake of art.

It appears apart from the canvas painting of the spiritual kind which he is learning from a local artist, he is also learning the Mysore traditional gold leaf painting under teachers, Anand, K. S. Shreehari and B. P. Ramakrishna. For him this is a different kind of accomplishment. So far he has traveled in about 30 countries in the world and finds that there is a lot to learn about life and living. It is obvious he is going to participate in Dasara painting contest because he says, "After coming from my pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash, I am going to collect my first prize for my painting in Dasara." Optimist indeed! As this kind of meandering questions and answers continued over a cup of tea and some biscuits, I looked at him straight in the face, eye - ball to eye - ball and shot my question like a bullet:

Tomasz, tell me honestly, what is your goal in life?
He was cool as the proverbial cucumber. "Worldly. To become good at something. Ideally in the art world."
Turning a bit philosophical he says, "In a way we become what we are because of social circumstances. For over 10 years I have been dallying with brush and paint, but it was only in Mysore I got totally focused on it."

Surprisingly, he is also with a small group of charitable organisation here functioning under the name “Operation Shanthi”. Its one of the objectives is to get children off the street. How come he is into this kind of social service? He says: Inspiration came from Mother Teresa in Kolkata where I went five years ago and stayed for one month caring for the terminally ill. It was there that I came face-to-face with the dying people and saw how the man in his death bed reacts when the inevitable happens. Tomasz says he had carried in his two hands such people washed them and cleansed them. Saw them protesting or resisting death with different reactions just before death silenced them. Some die reluctantly, screaming and crying not wanting to die at all, frightened of death, though in great pain and physically disfigured. Others just welcome death as a great liberator of pain and misery, quietly, sometimes with an impassive face and sometimes with a gentle smile at being relieved from the miserable world of life into the peace and painless world of death. The question is how do you exit from this world. Tomasz says for him life is a continuing education, courtesy India.

"Now that he is out of his cook’s job, can he go back to it and be as good as before," I ask. He laughs and says, "Don’t worry. It is like riding a bicycle. You can’t forget cooking once you have learnt." Anyway, he says, he is not good at making money and tells me about his visit to China and Tibet in 2006. From Yunan in China he went to Mt. Kawakarpo in the company of about 35 Buddhist pilgrims. He circumambulated Mt. Kawakarpo, a distance of 350km. He says there are two important mountains worthy of worship by Buddhists; one is Mt. Kawakarpo, the other is Mt. Guru Rimpoche, what Hindus call Mt. Kailash, which to circumambulate one has to traverse only 52 km.

Both these mountains are very sacred for Buddhists. Tomasz tells me, Buddhists believe that while Mt. Kawakarpo is Buddha’s mind, Guru Rimpoche (Mt. Kailash) is Buddha’s body. Asked if he would climb the body of Buddha during his visit to Mt. Kailash, he emphatically said, “No No No”. If he could circumambulate 350 km by walk, why not climb and have that experience too. He gives me the reason. It seems a group of 13 inveterate members of a Japanese expedition ventured to climb the mountain but an avalanche finished them all not one survived. It appears no one is expected to climb and desecrate the sacred mountain. Therefore, the same danger may present itself in climbing Mt. Kailash.

Looking at the direction he is heading, he may soon become an Enlightened Master. Hmm! At the end, I told him, "Look, after all, whether rich or poor, healthy or sick, ultimate aim of each individual is happiness. American Constitution gives prime place for “pursuit of happiness”. Why all these hassles? I will tell you a story." He smiled gently as is his wont. And I narrated the story of an American tourist. The tourist wanted to see real India and so went to a remote village. He saw a young boy, a cowherd, lying under a tree and grazing cattle. He asked the boy, why he should not go to school and get educated. The boy asked: Then what? Go to college, said the tourist. The boy asked: Then what? The tourist said after the college you get a good job and you can earn money and then get married to a beautiful girl. The boy asked: Then what? The American said: "You will be happy." The boy took one quizzical look at the American tourist and said: But, I am already happy.

My friend Tomasz heard the story, looked at me with a glint in his eyes, a gentle smile playing on his pink visage and said: "Well, your story doesn't end there. The American showed the boy an Ipod and the boy was ready to go to school!" I threw up my hand and surrendered to my future master and guru. Thank you Tomasz for your time. Meet me after you return from Mt. Kailash.

K. B. Ganapathy
Courtesy: Star of Mysore

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