Here is the full context:
Maurice warned me that the regulations of Cambridge University would, however, prevent me from submitting a doctoral dissertation at the end of my first year. the university regulations did indeed say that a student could not submit a PhD thesis until three years of research had been undertaken. So I asked myself the question: should I get away to do something more interesting than the topic of the doctoral thesis which I had, for one reason or another, come to choose? And, thanks to the already completed chapters, couldn’t I go back to Calcutta and forget the doctoral research for two years? I wanted a break and, on top of that, I was missing India.
The first question: What does the writer mean by saying "get away to do something".
The second question: does he mean he should get away to 'work on a different topic of the doctoral thesis' OR he should get away to 'do something other than working on a thesis (e.g. finding another vocation)?
please paraphrase the marked sentence if necessary.
Thanks for helping.
the reference: At 23, Amartya Sen finished the work for his PhD in one year and then set up an economics department