This is the book on the life and times of no ordinary man but that of Lama Doboom Tulku …and the best part is the fact that he’s written it himself together with the well -known New Delhi-based academic Sudhamahi Regunathan. And it’s written in such an uncomplicated and simple way …nudging one to read it all at one go. A book review by Humra Quraishi
BOOK-REVIEW
Title – TAKEN AWAY – THE ORDINARY LIFE OF A LAMA
Authors – Doboom Tulku with Sudhamahi Regunathan
Publisher – Bloomsbury
Pages – 350
Price – Rs 599
Book Review
By Humra Quraishi
If you are wondering like I am why this title ‘Taken Away’ to the memoirs of a Lama, then in the very opening page to this book, Lama Doboom Tulku explains it all in such a simple and uncomplicated way – “I did not plan my life. That is why I decided to title my memoirs Taken Away. At a very young age, I was identified as a reincarnation and taken away from my home where I was born. And the rest of my life unfolded similarly. My monastery, my horse, my country – to name just a few – were all taken away over time…Do I not miss my country, I am asked? Of course, I do. That was a sad separation. But life continued to be full of variety and showed me new things along the way. I think, if I had not left when I did, I would now be a nomad perhaps, tending to animals …”
Well, this is the book on the life and times of no ordinary man but that of Lama Doboom Tulku …and the best part is the fact that he’s written it himself together with the well -known New Delhi-based academic Sudhamahi Regunathan.
And it’s written in such an uncomplicated and simple way …nudging one to read it all at one go …absorb all the destined turns in the life of Lama Doboom Tulku. A huge range of turns! To quote from this book – “Venerable Doboom Lobsang Tenzin Tulku was born in 1942 in Kham in eastern Tibet. At the age of two or three, he was recognized as the reincarnation of the second Doboom Tulku. In 1953, Doboom Tulku entered Drepung Monastry in Lhasa, where he studied Buddhist philosophy until the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 forced him into exile in India at the age of seventeen…”
Thereafter, he worked and studied and resided in the different cities in India …He also served as director of the New Delhi-based Tibet House and he’d also worked with the Dalai Lama’s Private Office.
What seems unfortunate and tragic is the fact he passed away months before this book could be published. To quote Sudhamahi Regunathan on this, “Even as the manuscript was being edited, Rinpoche’s health worsened. Is it poetic irony that he was taken away by his multiple illnesses before the book was published? Early on the morning of 29 January 2024, Rinpoche Lama Duboom Tulku breathed his last. He had spent last six or seven years trying to convince me that though a monk, he was an ordinary person. He forgot to do so after 29 January when he lay in deep meditation or thukdam for a week after his last breath. Thukdam is a Buddhist phenomenon where the realized monk’s consciousness remains in the body even after his passing. So, the decomposition of the body does not begin. On 4 February, the last rites were held in the grounds of Tehor Khangtsen, Mundgod, in a grand ceremony and the relics taken to his residence in Drete Dhargyon, Mundgod, Karnataka. ”
