Another Aquarist of Bangalore: by S. Naga Siddharth Embedded in the heart of Bangalore is Mr.Vasudevan's house. Hardly a 10 minute walk from M.G. Road, the main thoroughfare of Bangalore, it is a large old house which is literally an aquarist's dream. Surrounded by thick foliage, Mr. Vasudevan's house is a residence for around two thousand fish. "Here a fish, there a fish, everywhere fish fish," Mr.Vasudevan is one of those people whose names could replace Ol' MacDonald's in that evergreen nursery rhyme.
Born on the 6th of March 1941, Mr Vasudevan started his hobby with one tank from Madras (now Chennai) and a few fish in 1956. With no Internet at that time, he took recourse to books on fish which he collects even now. On one instance right at the beginning, he mistook the faeces of the fish for eggs and kept awake a whole night waiting for fry to emerge. That is history. He has made a few innovations of his own. One of the five star restaurants of Bangalore went in for refurbishment and put up its wash tubs on auction. He purchased those old wash tubs at a throwaway price of around Rs.200 each (roughly converted, it is around US$4 ), plugged them and started using them as aquariums (ponds rather!). I prefer calling them a battery of tanks!
He has around twenty of them even now. As he has concentrated on breeding fish, he does not have the usual tall aquariums. Instead he has 2ft x 2ft x 6 inch (l,b,h) tanks. Not to mention, he also buys people's tanks when they want to go for an upgrade. So add another ten or so. In toto he has fifty tanks. He wants to add another twenty-five tanks to his collection.
The junkyard: True to any aquarist's he too has a corner for junk. As you can see, it consists of run-down aquariums and tanks to be repaired.
Fish foods and paraphernalia: He brings up his fish only on vegetarian foods that he formulates. No commercial stuff for him. As for the gravel and other paraphernalia, he says a firm "NO." He is of the opinion that these are not required. So much so that, he does not use aerators, pumps, filters, pH meters, or heaters. As some skeptics might say, "in spite of all this," all his two thousand or so fish are very healthy and he reports hardly any mortality.
As to what he has bred, the list is winding. Goldfish (pearlscale, oranda, common, moors, fantail), sunset platies, gouramis (pearl, blue, kissing), mollies, rosy barbs, swordfish, angels, Bettas the feather in his cap that he has maintained a strain of tangerine for over 25 years now.
One of the attractions at his place for me was a 25 year old kissing gourami that unfortunately passed away recently. Even at the age of 62 he is quite frisky when it comes to aquaria. You can see him getting into one of his numerous cement tanks in one of the photographs. It just needs a mention of a new aquarium shop in town to get him started off on his motorcycle.
Reactions at home: His wife at first wasn't too happy with all the fish. But now she has also joined the bandwagon. The other day when I visited them, she told me to tiptoe into their living room because the angels were breeding and she didn 't want them getting disturbed. She had in fact covered the sides of the tank with an old saree (lest they get disturbed). (Any award for fish rights?). I am sure a pertinent question at this time must be as to what he does for a living or you have reached the forgone conclusion that he breeds fish for a living. If it was the latter that you had opined, I must regret to say that you are woefully away from target. Mr.Vasu is an advocate and I learnt from sources that he is quite a ferocious one in court. If you are wondering as to what in fishdom an advocate is, it is the same as an attorney. Any amusing instances? Plenty of them. Just to mention one. When his neighbours were new, they always used to wonder at the way the water level in their wells used to go down once a month or so and get restored on its own. This continued for a few years until one day a neighbour happened to visit his place and met Mr.Vasu inside his 10ft by10ft by 6ft tank (concrete) cleaning it and subsequently filling water from his well. The mystery was solved. Nowadays Mr.Vasu informs his neighbours a day in advance before filling his tank. Anything remotely connected with fish is carefully archived, like a huge gift wrapping paper which has been framed:
Mr.Vasudevan has an e-group called "AquaInfo" which he opened recently on the 31st of March 2003 which is open to anyone who is interested to join. The group focuses on cost cutting and innovation. You are invited to visit and join www.groups.yahoo.com/group/aquainfo
He is always available and is most willing to help people out with the knowledge from his vast experience. His opinion is that fish and other aquaria related stuff should be provided at no cost to the budding aquarists so as to encourage this hobby. Encore Mr. Vasudevan ! |
