The Mystery

 “Oh god, its Monday again”, thought Samanth. He reluctantly got off his bed and got ready to go to office – the one place he hated the most. Samanth was a salesman working in a company which sold computers. He was toiling hard for the last 3 years in hope of a promotion to the assistant manager’s position, but to no avail. As he got down the bus and headed to his office, he saw a sign board – Know your future – only 10 rupees.

Samanth had broken up with his girlfriend, his professional career seemed to have nosedived and he was not getting a job anywhere else. “Let me check out where my future lies”, thought Samanth.

“Baba, can you please tell me how my future is?”

The man, whose face radiated a mysterious energy, looked at Samanth and said, “Why do you want to know the future? You anyway cannot change it.”

“Yes, I cannot change the future. But it will at least save me the misery of thinking about it. And anyway, I will pay your 10 bucks. Isn’t that why you are sitting here in the first place?”

“Oh, this sign? This was here before I came.”

Samanth was disappointed. Hearing that the guy was not an astrologer, he started towards his office. The bearded man saw his disappointment and called out.

“I don’t disappoint anyone who comes my way. You only want to know your future, right? I will tell you what will happen to you today.”

“Really? Please tell me, baba.

“You will get a promotion today”, declared the man authoritatively and closed his eyes for meditation.

Samanth had mixed feelings as he walked towards his office. On one side he was happy that the guy told he will be promoted, but on the other side he chided himself for believing the words of a man who did not even have a proper place to live. He gave another look at the man, let out a sigh filled with self-pity and continued towards the office.

“Sir, bade sahib wants to see you”, blurted out the peon as soon as Samanth walked in.

“It must be about my quarterly targets. I was on sick leave for 10 days but still the takalu won’t decrease the targets. God, please save me.”

“Oh Samanth, come in. I have something important to talk to you” said the boss.

“The company is very happy with you work and we have decided to promote you to the post of Asst. Manager. You will have two persons reporting to you”

Samanth couldn’t believe his ears. These were the words he had hoped to hear for the last three years, and now, he was actually hearing them. Samanth thanked his boss and came back to his cubicle. He thought of the old man who made the prediction about the promotion and rushed to the window to see him. The old man was sitting there, still meditating. He quickly went to the old man.

“Baba, I got promoted. I thought you were a fraud, but you are a genius. Thank you very much”.  The baba smilingly approved with a slight nod of his head.
Meanwhile, greed got the better of Samanth. He thought if the baba can predict something like his promotion so accurately, then he can also tell what will happen to him in the next week, next month, next year and next decade.

“Baba, please tell me my entire future. I want to know everything”, pleaded Samanth.

The face of baba suddenly became serious. He thought for a while and said, “You would not want to know that. Believe me; you are better off not knowing your future.” Hearing this, Samanth replied nervously, “Why baba, is the future so bad?”
   
“No, on the contrary, you have a much better future than an average person. But knowing the future is a dangerous thing. This will only add to your misery.”

“No baba, I still want to know the future. You told nobody goes disappointed from your footsteps. Please don’t disappoint me.”

Baba paused, took a deep breath and after a little shake of his head told Samanth “Okay, if you wish so. But remember, you cannot change your future, you can only see it. Whenever you want know about the future, just close your eyes and think about the date, all the events on that particular date will run before your eyes as if they are happening right now.”

Samanth was confused. He had expected a traditional soothsaying where the person tells what will happen to him, when he will get married, about his career prospect and so on. This was different. He closed his eyes and thought about all dates of the past. To his astonishment he saw his entire life playing out before his eyes once again. He thought about the current date, but saw everything except the old man and the new power.

“Why am I not able to see you or any of my encounters with you?’ asked Samanth

“Even I cannot answer all questions. Perhaps, our meeting was never meant to happen.” Baba looked at Samanth, smiled and said, “Even God’s software has bugs!”.

As Samanth headed home, he was exhausted with the turn of events. But sleep was the last thing on his mind. He quickly thought of all the dates in the next month and found out what will happen to him.
Next day he went to the office and sat in his new cubicle. The receptionist called to inform him that the client has asked him to meet at 2 PM. Samanth smiled as he already knew it; he even knew the outcome of the meeting. The client will give him a big order and his boss will give him an increment.

This became a daily routine. He knew beforehand what would happen. One day he saw that the client will be very angry with him after a meeting and the order will be cancelled. The night before the meeting he prepared meticulously and paid attention to everything. But the client still found some grave errors and cancelled the order.

Things were happening exactly as he saw them. He got a new girlfriend, broke up with her, fought with his best friend and lost his IPOD. He slowly realized that he was totally helpless against the turn of events. Though he liked it when good things happened to him, he hated it when he knew that things would go wrong and still could not do anything to stop it.

He realized that life had become so predictable that nothing got him excited. He did not laugh at his colleague’s jokes as he already knew it, he no longer felt happy on a new business deal or unhappy when the deal could not go through, nobody could give him any surprises anymore. He knew them all. It was like watching the recording of an India-Pakistan cricket match; a match which went down the wire and India won on the last ball. But if you watched the live match, ball by ball, and are forced to watch the recordings as well, the excitement will no longer be there.  The gravity of the situation slowly dawned on him. He had become a machine who had to go through the motions. He was totally helpless. Many a times he thought he will not think about the future. But try not thinking about something and that is exactly the thing you think! He tried to look for the baba and ask him take back the power, but the baba was nowhere to be seen.

One day he thought about a random date and saw a blank. ”Hmm... probably I am dead by then”, thought Samanth. Ironically, this thought actually made him happy, a feeling he had stopped experiencing a long time ago. He traced his “death date” by the trial-and-error method and began the wait of the inevitable event. On the way, he took part in all the ‘mandatory’ events like his marriage, his job-changes, death of the loved ones and many more; having the same experience as watching the recorded India-Pakistan match. Finally, his death-date arrived and he was released from the miserable life he was leading. On his death-bed, he remembered Baba’s words – “Knowing the future is a dangerous thing. This will only add to your misery”. As Baba had told, he did lead a life which, in normal circumstances, would have been much better than that of an average person, but in actuality he was probably the saddest person on earth.

Baba, who had been watching Samanth's story all along, looked at the unfortunate soul one last time and thought, " The greatest mystery in the world is tomorrow. Nobody knows what will happen in future. Its the hope of a good tomorrow that keeps pushing the men to strive hard. Once the mystery is solved, life is not worth living". Indeed, as Samanth found out.

Sadharan insaan

paed, paudhe, mitti, pathar
kya inse alag meri pehchaan
mein to ek sadharan insaan

kal tha nahi, par aaj sahi,
aaj sahi, kal phir nahi,
kya badalega isse koi parinaam
mein to ek sadharan insaan

arabon ki manav sena mein,
chala ja raha ek tinke samaan
mein to ek sadharan insaan

 ************************************************************************************

पेड, पौधे, मिटटी, पत्थर
क्या इनसे अलग मेरी पहचान,
मैं तो एक साधारण इंसान

कल था नहीं, पर आज सही,
आज सही, कल फिर नहीं,
क्या बदलेगा इससे कोई परिणाम
मैं तो एक साधारण इंसान

अरबों की मानव सेना में,

चला जा रहा एक तिनके समान ,

 मैं तो एक साधारण इंसान

Simply Fly - A Deccan Odyssey - Review

In the small village of Gorur, located in the interiors of Karnataka, the headmaster asked a bunch of school kids if they were interested to write a competitive administration exam for a novel military training school called Sainik School. An 11 year old boy raised his hand, even though he did not know the real meaning of ‘military’, or had any idea of what he would be doing there. He only had a dream of stepping out to the unknown. It was this adventurous trait of him that would go on to define him in the future. The boy was G.R.Gopinath, the father of low cost airlines in India. Simply Fly is a remarkable story of a village boy’s journey through life, the challenges he faced, the ups and downs he experienced and the unbridled optimism with which he approached every event of his life.

The early parts of the book talk about his childhood, the time he spent in his native village of Gorur, his move to the Sanik School in Bijapur and finally his experiences in the National Defence Academy (NDA) (some of them are quite humorous!). Further, he describes his stint in the Indian Army, where he fought the Bangladesh liberation war. After the war he was posted to some challenging locations, one among them a picket called 4752, where the maximum summer temperature hovered around minus two degree Celsius!

Though Army life had been wonderful for him, it was, in his own words, “too regimented and predictable” for his liking. He was not enjoying his stint in the Army and thus one fine day he quit and came back to his village.

Though he quit the Army, he had no idea what he would do for a living. At the same time the government was building a dam on the Hemavathy river which would submerge Gopinath’s ancestral land. As compensation the government had provided 10 acres of land each to his father and his three brothers. The land was largely barren, with patches of jungle and scrub forest and without any proper access route. That is why when the Captain declared that he would start living there and set up his farm, his father could only utter two words, “Ningenu Huccha?” (Are you mad?) Almost everybody tried to dissuade him from taking to farming, but the Captain was adamant. He had a vision for the farm and he would not stop until he achieved it.

His struggles to set up the farm are some of the most inspirational parts of the book (along with his setting up of Deccan Aviation). To begin with, he only had Rs 6000 with him and needed capital to set up the farm. But the banks where he went to take the loan were rude, apathetic and indifferent. On top of that he also had to face the hostility of the nearby villagers who were not too happy with his arrival as they were using the land earlier for grazing their cattle, which obviously they could not do any more. There were innumerable other roadblocks like lack of electricity, floods and drought But Captain Gopinath, through sheer grit and determination and single minded focus on the goal, was able to cross each one of these hurdles and went on to set up the farm successfully. He was eventually awarded the Rolex award for Enterprise for employing eco-friendly ways of farming. Along with the farm he also dabbled in other businesses like a motorcycle dealership, opening a hotel business, working as a stock broker and setting up an Agricultural consultancy!

Soon thereafter, Captain Gopinath took a plunge in politics and stood for the election on the ticket of BJP. His “can-do” spirit is further evident here as he faced a lot of challenges on account of him being a first-timer and also because BJP was pretty much unknown in the state at that time. Particularly interesting is his duel with Deve Gowda, one of the strongest leaders of the state, where Gowda had to eventually retreat! Though he lost the elections, it did not sadden him. As he writes, “Yes, there was disappointment, but there was also a curios sense of exultation. I had discovered a strange power within me”.

Gopinath soon shifted to Bangalore where he began socializing with his old Army friends. One of them was Captain K.J Samuel. He was a freelance pilot, flying helicopters all over India. One day he suggested to Captain Gopinath, “Why can’t we do something with the helicopters?”  The seed of Deccan aviation was planted on this day. Sometime later, with Samuel’s words in his mind and inspired by the newspaper report of a Vietnamese girl who flew investors and aid workers in a helicopter over Vietnam, as the infrastructure in the country was totally devastated due to the war, Gopinath thought, “If helicopters can work in Vietnam, so can they in India, where the infrastructure is as bad!”. He decided that he will start a helicopter company and Deccan Aviation was born.

As Captain has mentioned in the book, setting up the new venture was similar to setting up his farm; only that this was at a much bigger scale and the challenges much tougher. His ordeals with the bureaucracy and his successful way past the labyrinth makes for a very inspiring read. Like the instance where just to get a NOC from the government for the new company, he had to toil hard for two long years! Gopinath’s experiences convince you that if you have the will, have decided in your heart that no matter what, the goal has to be achieved, then no one can stop you from achieving it. After years of relentless pursuit, hard work and sacrifices the helicopter business was firmly established. It’s a tribute to his vision and courage that starting off with such meager resources, he was able to establish the business in a capital intensive industry like aviation.

Upon the success of Deccan Aviation, Gopinath decided to enter the airline industry – by starting a low cost airline, Air Deccan. If anything, this was a much bigger risk. For all its challenges, one thing in his favor when he started Deccan Aviation was that there was very little competition, but here there were established players and the sector was notorious for its cut throat competition. There were also suggestions that the low cost model will not work in India. But the Captain had complete conviction in his business model and had a novel dream – to make the common man fly. The airline experienced exponential growth and within a very short time it even overtook the national carrier.

However, new challenges emerged which throttled the growth of Air Deccan. The challenges, among others, included poaching of its pilots and engineers by the rival airlines and the collapse of its IT system. Gopinath had no choice but to seek external funding, even if it meant ceding control of his say in day-to-day running of the company. Eventually the company had to be merged to Kingfisher airlines. The last chapter talks about his new venture – Deccan360 – which he funded by mortgaging everything he had, his house, his shares and his stocks. He started all over again!

A couple of the things that stand out from the book are Captain Gopinath’s unflinching optimism and his courage to follow his dreams, even though they may look implausible and impractical at first. Couple of years ago, I read the popular book The Alchemist. If I call Simply Fly the non-fictional counterpart of The Alchemist, it would not be entirely wrong.

Simply Fly is a must read. It motivates you to flap your wings and take the flight to the unknown island of your dreams.

Na jaane aaj.....

न जाने आज, दिल बहुत खुश है
कल की चिंता नहीं, कल का गम नहीं,
बस आज की लहरों में बहा जा रहा हूँ मैं

न जाने आज, हर गीत सुरीला है
गायकी में कशिश है, हर शब्द में एक कहानी 
संगीत के सागर में डूबा जा रहा हूँ मैं

न जाने आज, सब दोस्त अच्छे हैं
किसी में इर्षा नहीं, किसी से इर्षा नहीं
बस सबके गुण गाता चला जा रहा हूँ मैं

न जाने आज, बहुत अच्छी नींद आयी है
दिल पर बोझ नहीं, किसी की सोच नहीं
इन बादलों में तैरता चला जा रहा हूँ मैं

कल तो ऐसा न था, कल शायद ऐसा न हो
क्यों न आज जी भर के जी लूं
बरसों से आँखे मूँद जिया जा रहा हूँ मैं

Goodbye

She came towards me
With that sweet little smile
I wish I knew my life
Would forever be futile

A bit shy, a bit excited
She giggled all the time
She had something to say
Her eyes were the first sign

She was hesitant to tell
Something held her back
She talked of all the world
But nothing from the prepared stack

Then suddenly, she stopped talking
A fleeting glance came my way
With her eyes still pointing down
Slowly, she began to say

I think I am in love
I think I found my soul mate
This is the moment I longed for
God has answered my wait

My heart beat faster
Faster than ever before
I waited for her next word
Like a fish on the shore

She took out her wedding card
And stoically handed to me
Was the heaviest thing I ever held
Down it fell, but did anyone see?

Silence engulfed us
The eyes replaced the mouth
Those little things never lie
Then why am I north and why is she south?

The eyes closed gently
They couldn’t take it anymore
Up flew the mind, into the past
Away from this silent uproar


The sound of footsteps brought me back
There she was, walking behind
My outstretched hands couldn’t stop her
Cos they moved, only in my mind

Still, she stopped momentarily
Perhaps, she felt my invisible hand
Then trudged ahead with watery eyes
Breaking to pieces, my castle of sand