Book: Simply Fly

Captain Gopinath has led an interesting life. Son of a village school master, he attended Sainik school before joining the army and seeing action in the Bangladesh war. He farmed, ran an Udupi restaurant, an automobile sales and service agency and an agricultural consultancy and stood for elections twice. Of course, he is best known for showing that low cost airlines could work in India.

His book narrates the events that shaped the philosophy behind Air Deccan, most of them going back to his farming days. From Simply Fly, one gets the impression that it is only the setting that changes; he gave as much energy and commitment to dealing with the termites in his coconut grove as to getting approvals for his fleet.

The personality that emerges is that of the quintessential entrepreneur, driven by both lofty vision and hard-nosed opportunism. Obsession is a recurring theme; when he gets an idea, he can’t stop thinking about it, the adrenaline rush never wears off. He is also a salesman, always looking for the next customer, always ready to pack his bags and knock on one more door. The book is an easy read, conversational in tone (it emerged out of 260 hours of “recorded ramblings,” he says), and his off the beaten path story is amazing. But he also has a tendency to give mini-lectures (some of them boring) and overuse quotes from a range of sources, which, sadly, come in the way of an action-packed narrative. If you want something different from the usual “study hard, go to IIT, do an MS in the US, join an MNC, hit the glass ceiling, start your company” saga, read this book.

Simply Fly, A Deccan Odyssey, Captain Gopinath, HarperCollins, Rs. 499