Simply Fly
September 7, 2010
I just wrapped up reading Captain G.R. Gopinath's 'Simply Fly', described by the blurb on top of the front cover as 'A Deccan Odyssey'.
Richard Branson's comment (which also figures on the front cover) describes the book as a 'warts and all book'.
After turning the first few pages, I knew that this was a book that I would be reading cover to cover, which is what I proceeded to do. The book has a very candid air to it and once you start to plow through, you begin to relate with the man behind the book, the man behind India's first ever low-cost carrier. The grammatical foibles that pop up with fair regularity don't seem to sully the book: the reader just tends to tune it out as he/she reads, just as one would tune out various nervous ticks that a celebrated speaker may be displaying. With 'Simply Fly', it's just the story that takes the center-stage.
The anecdotes narrated are very interesting and I found myself nodding to myself subconsciously whenever I came across one which I remembered reading about in the papers. Capt Gopi starts a rambling account which starts from his NDA days, proceeds to describe his various business forays and then comes the part you really are looking forward to: the Deccan Aviation part.
Capt Gopi is frank and honest and actually names names of people he sought and received help from, during the leadup to getting his own helicopter company and beyond, while taking care to mention that none of those favors were 'out-of-turn' or 'undeserved'. A reader cannot but help feeling a connection with the man behind the book as he struggles to meet deadlines in the face of bureucratic redtape and arcane laws. A reader cannot but help feel good, each time our protagonist triumphs over odds. In many ways, he's every one of us, with the warts, fears, insecurities and yet possessed of an indominable will.
I found myself reading with bated breath as Capt Gopi climbs dizzying heights while at the same time combating often elementary problems. He describes in fair detail the reasons which prompted him to take the decisions that he did and as the novel approaches the end, with Vijay Mallya first plowing in money into Deccan and later, completely stripping it of it's identity, one feels betrayed or wounded, but it's more than just emotions. One cannot help feeling sad for a person who had the guts to see his dreams come so close to fruition only to be checkmated in the end. One cannot help but do a post-mortem of the various decisions that Capt Gopi took, and armed with the power of hindsight, feel that Capt Gopi ought to have done this differently and that, but that's just the power of hindsight at work.
A young and enthusiastic entrepreneur has much to take home from this book. One realizes that while all that is required for a person to transform his/her dreams into reality is a burning passion, it takes a lot of discipline and a perfectionist's eye for detail to keep it on the road.
Richard Branson's comment (which also figures on the front cover) describes the book as a 'warts and all book'.
After turning the first few pages, I knew that this was a book that I would be reading cover to cover, which is what I proceeded to do. The book has a very candid air to it and once you start to plow through, you begin to relate with the man behind the book, the man behind India's first ever low-cost carrier. The grammatical foibles that pop up with fair regularity don't seem to sully the book: the reader just tends to tune it out as he/she reads, just as one would tune out various nervous ticks that a celebrated speaker may be displaying. With 'Simply Fly', it's just the story that takes the center-stage.
The anecdotes narrated are very interesting and I found myself nodding to myself subconsciously whenever I came across one which I remembered reading about in the papers. Capt Gopi starts a rambling account which starts from his NDA days, proceeds to describe his various business forays and then comes the part you really are looking forward to: the Deccan Aviation part.
Capt Gopi is frank and honest and actually names names of people he sought and received help from, during the leadup to getting his own helicopter company and beyond, while taking care to mention that none of those favors were 'out-of-turn' or 'undeserved'. A reader cannot but help feeling a connection with the man behind the book as he struggles to meet deadlines in the face of bureucratic redtape and arcane laws. A reader cannot but help feel good, each time our protagonist triumphs over odds. In many ways, he's every one of us, with the warts, fears, insecurities and yet possessed of an indominable will.
I found myself reading with bated breath as Capt Gopi climbs dizzying heights while at the same time combating often elementary problems. He describes in fair detail the reasons which prompted him to take the decisions that he did and as the novel approaches the end, with Vijay Mallya first plowing in money into Deccan and later, completely stripping it of it's identity, one feels betrayed or wounded, but it's more than just emotions. One cannot help feeling sad for a person who had the guts to see his dreams come so close to fruition only to be checkmated in the end. One cannot help but do a post-mortem of the various decisions that Capt Gopi took, and armed with the power of hindsight, feel that Capt Gopi ought to have done this differently and that, but that's just the power of hindsight at work.
A young and enthusiastic entrepreneur has much to take home from this book. One realizes that while all that is required for a person to transform his/her dreams into reality is a burning passion, it takes a lot of discipline and a perfectionist's eye for detail to keep it on the road.
Capt Gopi seemed to get at least nine things out of ten right but it was just the odd thing he failed to nail down that ultimately pulled him down and it is this fact that servers as a warning beacon to those of us who are trying to take the plunge into entreprenuership, that nailing down almost everything is not enough: you have to nail everything down. Hard, but not impossible. I'm sure Captain Gopinath would agree.