Meeting the other Gopinath

I first became aware of the other Gopinath thanks to ChatGPT which is known to occasionally spew unfettered nonsense My selfserving question mainly to check ChatGPTrsquos prowess had been What can you tell me about the writer C Y GopinathThe response came a few seconds later mdash ldquoC Y Gopinath is a beloved Kannada writer known for his humorous emotionally rich satires about village life with unforgettable colourful characters Gopinath won the Sahitya Akademi Award but shortly after he became fascinated by civil aviation and went on to launch Indiarsquos first lowcost airlinerdquoSince I have had a lifelong relationship with C Y Gopinath starting from his very birth I recognised every word here as ripe bullshit I am far from winning any awards do not write in Kannada and definitely am not beloved judging from the mail I receive As for civil aviation I have a profound fear of flying and prefer trainsIrsquod be lying if I told you that I put the incident behind me and returned to the fulltime job of being the real C Y Gopinath I knew that ChatGPTrsquos replies were sometimes a plausible soup made up of factoids hoovered up from adjacent sources It shouldnrsquot be very difficult I thought to find who had inspired the AI programFinding a Kannada satirist who wrote emotional stories about village life was easy Goruru Ramaswamy Iyengar born in Gorur Karnataka died in 1991 aged 87 He lived by Gandhian principles and was jailed briefly for his role in the Quit India movementHis most celebrated books included Halliya Ccedilhitragallu 1930 and Namma Oorina Rasikaru 1932 but it was his Amerikadalli Goruru 47 years later a tongueincheek travelogue of an Indian in the United States that won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1981 He was loved for his affectionate wit and insightful depictions of the eccentricities of rural lifeAlso read Maharashtra Man held from Punjab for 1994 Navi Mumbai murderAll very well But why would ChatGPT decide to transplant Goruru Ramaswamy Iyengarrsquos literary achievements on to a hack like meOne day about four weeks ago in response to my column The Revenge of Indian English I got mail from a namesake Captain G R Gopinath in Bengaluru What a delightful piece Gopi he wrote Wonder why you didnrsquot make the cut to be the top dog for the CEOrsquos post of Grammarly mdash GopiI googled him and struck gold right away Serving in the army for eight years from age 20 this Gopinath had fought in the trenches of the Bangladesh Liberation War and earned the rank of Captain before taking early retirement in 1979 at 28 His career took its first sharp turn heremdashhe turned to farming setting up a sericulture farm Some of his innovations in ecological sustainability here won him the Rolex Laureate Award in 1996But it was his next career twist that stopped me in my tracks in 2003 he founded Indiarsquos first lowcost airline Air Deccan with a fleet of six 48seater twinengine aircraft flying once daily between Hubli and Bangalore He announced that he would make it possible for Indians to fly at a rupeeIn 2005 he came up with ldquodynamic pricingrdquo where early bird flyers could get a ticket for a rupee By 2007 Air Deccan had a fleet of 45 planes Airbus and ATR and was operating 380 flights a day from 67 airports many in small towns At least three million Indians flew at one rupee a ticketChatGPT had clearly been inspired by this Gopinathrsquos passion for aviation while hallucinating another Gopinathrsquos fake bioHere finally in the flesh was the real Gopinath who had started a lowcost airline and also inspired ChatGPTIrsquoll be in Bengaluru soon I WhatsApped him Can we meetGopinath met Gopinath one evening at Toscano a restaurant in Bengalurursquos UB City I was taller than him by six inches He was older by six months We were dressed identically in navy blue tee shirts We both drank Coronas A bystander might have mistaken us for brothersLike me he seems to have flitted from one thing to another all his life but never let go of one driving passion For me it has been the change words can achieve when driven by passion and precision for him it was what airplanes could do when powered by idealism and compassionI suspect that also like me he is better at making ideas than making money When Vijay Mallyarsquos Kingfisher gobbled up Air Deccan and then sank with it Captain Gopinath was briefly shattered But he was soon back with Deccan Charters along with Deccan 360 a cargo airline In 2019 he reincarnated Air Deccan but itrsquos still finding its wingsMight he quit ldquoThat would be like asking M S Subbulakshmi not to singrdquo he replied I suspect Captain G R Gopinath might be just getting warmed upA mystery still remained What on earth had the Kannada writer Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar to do with memdashor the namesake I was sipping beer withThe Captain was amused that I hadnrsquot figured this out He laughed and said ldquoHe was my granduncle on my motherrsquos side Like him I was born in Gorur I like my father was even named after him My initials stand for Gorur RamaswamyrdquoYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper