I had no
experience of how to handle money (my knowledge being limited to
spending the 50 paise or one rupee I would receive as pocket money now
and then).
So while I had set my sights on travelling far and wide my parents
wisely thought that I should begin by learning to manage on my own
within Goa itself. It was also the rainy season and travelling around
the country would be much more difficult they explained.
So I started out by helping at an aquarium shop in Mapusa, the town
nearest my village. The proprietor of the shop is Ashok D'Cruz, a
college friend of my father's. I must tell you about Ashok. He is no
ordinary businessman: keeping fish is a passion with him. He is far
more interested in chatting with his customers about fish than making
money selling them. I have never seen him forcing any of his customers
to buy from his stock of aquarium fish.
In fact, it was Ashok who introduced me to the amazing world of
aquarium fish way back when I was just nine and studying in Class V.
Under his guidance then, I experimented with breeding guppies, platties
and mollies, fairly simple types of fish to breed. However, it was a
matter of great excitement for me at that time to be successful in my
experiments and Ashok was generous enough to even buy back from me the
baby fish I reared just to encourage me.
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