While he was company secretary and CEO of Harisson Malayalam, Thomas Chacko had dealt with the insurance issues of hundreds of vehicles.
While he was company secretary and CEO of Harisson Malayalam, Thomas Chacko had dealt with the insurance issues of hundreds of vehicles. Ironically, it was insurance that proved hard to crack for the 67-year-old adventurer during his attempt last year to circle the globe in his Hyundai i20.
He started the journey on August 11, 2015, from Istanbul where he had shipped the car from Kochi and could cover over 1,30,000 km in 22 European countries without any major hitch before reaching Rotterdam in the Netherlands. His plan was to ship the car to New York for the second leg of the journey in the Americas and then finally finish with a tour of Malaysia, Vietnam, etc. “I tried to get third party insurance for my car but thanks to clueless insurance agents who didn’t know the laws of their land or the fundamental principles of insurance, it was not forthcoming.” So, he had to send the car back and proceed to cover the rest of the itinerary either in friends’ cars or as a tourist.
Though not totally satisfied, Chacko had a wonderful experience driving through Macedonia, Serbia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and Belgium to mention only a few countries. “I stayed as much as possible off the motorways and got a little closer to the countryside. Many people seemed to speak English than earlier when I had visited Europe and even those who didn’t were prepared to try and understand – even the French.”
He was lucky in that the refugee problem began a few days after he left Hungary. “Countries began introducing border control. Belgium had introduced it the day after I drove away. While it may still have been possible to get through, these controls led to massive traffic jams. In Germany, it lasted 13 hours.”
Chacko is now lending finishing touches to his memoirs of the journey. But the ace driver is prouder of another journey that he undertook in 2012. During that 78-day expedition, Chacko drove a Nano car to India’s farthest reaches – Tawang in the East, Kanyakumari in the South, Dwarka in the West, and Kargil in the North. In Ladakh, he drove to the highest motorable point in the world, Khardung La, which is at a height of 18,380 feet and Tanglang La, the second highest motorable road in the world.
It was back in 2001 that Chacko quit his corporate career but he has been working as a consultant, allowing him the luxury of indulging in his passion. “In this cyber age, I’m not required to be in one place to handle my work,” says Chacko who spends 45 minutes in the gym every day.
“My chronological age is 67 but as far I am concerned, it is just a number. You are as old as you feel. To not feel old, you need things in life that you look forward to. It needn’t be adventures like mine. It could be something interesting like a book launch, a speech, a music recital or even a wedding.”
Chacko, of course, has something bigger to look forward to. He wants to drive a Nano from Kochi through Nepal, China, Russia, the Baltic countries, USA, etc. before returning to India. “It may not happen because I need to raise at least Rs 30 lakh. But as long as I have such a dream, I can ward off old age.”
