Bengaluru :
“Solitude is imperative in today’s mad world,” notes Alexis Greenwood. That is this 35-year-old’s excuse for packing his fishing rods and running away from Bengaluru on weekends. “My favourite fishing spot is the Cauvery river stretch in Coorg. The quiet wilderness takes you away from the chaos,” he says. Greenwood, who is a learning and development manager at First Advantage, has even made a business of this childhood hobby . With three like-minded partnerfriends, he set up fishing-travel company Nature’s Beat four years ago.
Fishing is the instrument to unwind when he feels tired of imparting communication skills as a behavioural trainer during the course of the week.
Greenwood takes a mixed bag of three to four software professionals to licensed angling sites at Shivasamudram, Coorg. He even conducts groups for salt-water fishing on the coastline. He teaches them the basics and handling equipment with different types of baits at about Rs 5,000 per head. Most species of fish they catch are released back into the water. The invasive species, however, are given away to the locals.
Ask Greenwood who he learnt the art of angling from, and he gets nostalgic. “I must have been seven-years-old. My mother taught me to fish using a bamboo stick with a hook. We often went on camping trips to the Cauvery river stretch flowing through Galibore (near Mekedatu),” says Greenwood, a Mangaluru-born who was educated in Ooty.
Juggling careers is not new to him. Even as a business management student at the city’s Wigan & Leigh College, he would do a night shift at a mortgage bank. “I didn’t like asking for pocket money from my mother. I loved buying high-tech music gadgets and gear. I decided to fund it myself and took up the job for Rs 10,000 per month,” recalls Greenwood.
He believes that pursuing two careers is important, if only to break the monotony. “My job as a trainer is a means to my end.Fishing is the end to my means. In the age of instant results and click-and-buy online, fishing teaches one to sit and wait. More often, we don’t even get what we want. It teaches me patience,” says Greenwood. Evidently, there is no room for feeling a burnout here.
He has no plans of scaling up his business model, but his five-year-old daughter is apparently hooked to the sport.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / ET Home> News> Politics and Nation / by Smita Balram, ET Bureau / May 17th, 2017
