The span of work of the entire gaggle of high-charging management gurus, mental healers and their spiritual counterparts, change agents, career consultants and child counsellors is taken care of by this book. Author AA Khan’s Surrender is based on his action-packed career as an IPS officer for about 30 years. He offers a simple solution to the myriad ills that all these professionals aim to tackle: realization of the fact that there is a self in every individual which is universal and is capable of bringing about a turnaround in the life of a mind under stress – be it a threat, fear, humiliation or indecision.
Khan also believes that change is a law of nature and one must learn to live in the present, to flow with life’s direction and surrender to the forces of destiny in order to see miracles occur in one’s life. There is a rider, though – luck favours you only when opportunity encounters preparedness. This is precisely what the Upanishads talk about – the importance of self and of the present. And Hermann Hesse put it most succinctly in Sidharth – “Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present.”
In his book, running into 135 pages and 14 chapters, Khan brings to life an officer’s courage and conviction to lead the team against every odd, standing by fellow members till the end and sharing both suffering and elation. It was this granite-like integrity that brought success in innumerable operations against terrorists and hardcore criminals. Khan’s brainchild, the Anti-Terrorist Squad, won 23 gallantry medals awarded by the President of India. The entire police force of Maharashtra had won about 46 medals in the 46 years between 1947 and 1993.
Khan emphasizes that the common man is a policeman without uniform and, in place of professional informers, can be of immense help to the police in containing crime. Therefore a mutual understanding between the public and police is essential in getting the maximum out of the police force.
At the same time, Khan seeks the public’s appreciation of the fact that the average Indian policeman is low-paid, overworked, lives away from his family, handles diverse jobs under most inhospitable and inhuman conditions, constantly faces life-threatening situations, and at the end gets little recognition and money after retirement. Movingly, Khan points to the oft-repeated remark about the police, “After all, they are getting paid for it,” and the sneer of a cyber-age yuppie: “You brought me onto this planet, man, so what’s the big deal if you had to slave and save to bring me up as well?” In his own career, he was unceremoniously shunted to obscure postings – when a politician he had booked for violation of the law took revenge after becoming Home Minister, and when someone higher up in the pecking order took a unilateral decision. His ability to be guided by self and surrender to the master plan of some higher power stood him in good stead at these times.
The book, reinforcing the fact that there is a potential Khan in every individual and also in every policeman, is a satisfying and intriguing read.
Khan believes change is a law of nature and one must learn to live in the present, to flow with life’s direction in order to see miracles occur in one’s life
