PG Tenzing is no more

Himalayan News Service

GANGTOK: Author and former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Palden Gyatso Tenzing popularly known as ‘PG’ passed away early on July 26 in Gangtok after battling cancer for more than a year.

A hugely charismatic and affable personality, PG studied in Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling and thereafter graduated from the Delhi University. He got into the IAS in 1986 and opted to serve in the South Indian state of Kerala where he distinguished himself as a tough no-nonsense bureaucrat who was instrumental in setting up among other things the state’s world famous IT park.

In his home state Sikkim, PG was instrumental in setting up educational institutions including a monastery in Mangan. He was also the founder of the state’s most acclaimed weekly English newspaper Weekend Review during mid-1990’s. The revolutionary weekly made a big impact with its versatile concept giving a new direction to Sikkim’s print media.

In 2008 PG gave up his bureaucratic career of 20 years to pursue his dream of traversing the sub-continent on his Enfield Thunderbird bike. He ended his 25,000 kilometre-long road trip notably in Nepal where he caught up with several of his schoolmates, friends and relatives. He thereafter rented a small hut overlooking the Begnas lake near Pokhara to write his critically acclaimed travelogue Don’t ask any old bloke for directions which has been published by Penguin India. The book has since received rave reviews. PG is survived by his wife Ambica a bureaucrat in the Sikkim government and two daughters Menda and Dechen.