About The Author:-Captain Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath(born 13th November,1951) is an Indian entrepreneur,the founder of
Air Deccan,a retired Captain of the
Indian Army,an author and a politician.
Gopinath was born in
Gorur,Hassan,and was brought up in small village in Gorur in the
Hassan district of
Karnataka State.
Gopinath's father Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar,a school teacher,believed that schools were systems of regimentation and was resolved to teach Gopinath at home.
However,Gopinath was admitted to a
Kannada medium school quite late and straight away he joined Standard V.In 1962,Gopinath cleared the admission test and joined
Sainik School,Bijapur.The school helped and prepared Gopinath to clear the
NDA entrance exams.
After 3 years of vigorous training,Gopinath completed education from the National Defence Academy,Pune.He then went on to graduate from the
Indian Military Academy,Dehradun.
After school,he earned a commission in the
Indian Army,earning the rank of
Captain.He spent eight years in the army and fought in the 1971-72
Bangladesh Liberation War.
The army life seemed to somehow tie him down.He took early retirement from Indian Army,at the age of 28.Upon retirement from the armed forces,he established an ecologically sustainable sericulture farm;his innovative methods earned him the
Rolex Laureate Award in 1996.Next,he started the Malnad Mobikes(Enfield dealership) and opened a hotel in Hassan.
In 1997 he co-founded Deccan Aviation,a charter helicopter service.In 2003,Gopinath founded
Air Deccan,a low cost airline;Air Deccan merged with
Kingfisher Airlines in 2007.In 2009 he founded
Deccan 360,a freight flight business.In July 2013,
Deccan 360 was ordered to wind up by the
Karnataka High Court order based on petitions filed by Dubai-based United Aviation Services (UAS) and another by M/s Patel Integrated Logistics(PIL) Pvt. Ltd.— seeking recovery of amounts due to them by winding up the company.
In May 2006, he was knighted with "
Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur" the civilian award conferred by the French Government.He has received many awards for Air Deccan.
In 2009,Gopinath contested as an
independent candidate in Bangalore South constituency at the
Lok Sabha elections but was defeated.
In 2014,he unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections on the ticket of the
Aam Aadmi Party.
A film named
Soorarai Pottru was partly inspired by events from the life of
Simplifly Deccan founder G. R. Gopinath as described in his memoir Simply Fly:A Deccan Odyssey.
Link To The Author's Wikipedia Page:-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._R._Gopinath?searchToken=cxebdz0xg5k0qlzkrkmaf3en3Link To The Audiobook:-https://www.amazon.in/-/hi/gp/aw/d/9381215081/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
