UNDER THE WINGS, ON THE TARMAC
Do you believe in old sayings and pearls of wisdom? Do you have a spirit to support the Nation? Did you feel like joining Defence Forces or Indian Air Force anytime? I am sure you would have. DO you think the problems in civil life are totally different from that in Air Force? I think, then there is a need for you to buy this book in hard copy as a reference manual. It will act as a lighthouse when chips are down, which happens in everyone’s life sometime or the other.
Engineers from various institutes have an illustrious tradition of contributing to the Defence Forces, like many other fields since many decades. The foundation of VNIT has been instrumental in Air Force officers reaching highest ranks, prominent amongst them are Air Marshal Apte and Air Marshal Khandekar.
Air Marshal Khandekar passed out from VRCE (now VNIT) in 1977 and has authored a book titled “Under the Wings, On the Tarmac”. This is available on all e-platforms such as Amazon, Flipcart, ibooks, Googleplay, Kobo, Instagram, Facebook and others. The publisher is notionpress.com.
The book has all the elements of excitement- the testing moments, the religious connotations, the managerial acumen that one needs to exhibit with management techniques applied, the basic understanding of Law even if we may not be lawyers per se, the humour in uniform, the dual control that we face everyday at home, at office, everywhere! Though the environment is naturally of the Air Force, one needs to forget the acronyms while reading the way we ignore so many things in an article or a novel or a book, including in our student days when we ignored many chapters and topics and still scored well!
The book is about his journey in air force of almost forty years, how he faced the situations where the conflict of values and actions expected took place and his positive way of looking at things all time, irrespective whether he was felt important by the organisation or not.
Leadership and craziness perhaps go hand in hand when one wants to break the shackles of the organisation to do something of his own. Press on regardless, work on strengths of everyone round you, be transparent in Johari window, use Boston Consultancy Group Matrix in everyday life, keep your values highest are some of the lessons covered in very interesting way in the form of situations and stories. It is always good to give credit to all around you since it is always team work that produces synergy. The book also tells how the friendship is fragile and one has to fight one’s battle own way; if someone helps on way, it is a bonus.
We are in a society and affiliations to groups are important in ways more than one. Also professionalism needs to be garnished with humane touch as everyone in the group does neither have same motivational levels nor capability nor ability.
It is almost imperative to support one of us in all ventures and writing books is of course a class apart. I am sure, this book will find its rightful place in your exclusive collection of books.
-Air Marshal Khandekar
-A contribution from Air Marshal Khandekar.
The book is available on amazon.