CHENNAI: The latest edition of season four of Bliss Catchers featured Avis Viswanathan in a tete-a-tete with aquatic lover Ashwin Sukumaran, and portrait and lifestyle photographer Ram Keshav. The two achievers shared their journey of pursuing passions that they nurtured since childhood. Aquatic life lover and nature aquarium specialist Ashwin Sukumaran’s love for aquatic world began when he was 10 years old. When Ashwin turned 40, he gave up his well-paying corporate job as a marketing consultant, and took the plunge to follow his dreams to nurture his fledging start-up, Aquaria.
His company designs natural aquarium (recreating natural settings inside aquariums) and champions awareness for species among all those who want to know how fish live and behave. “Fish have taught me about the Circle of Life and how important it is that we preserve these fragile ecosystems. I love setting the best possible habitats for fish. If they’re happy, I am happy,” said Ashwin. Further adding that the aquarium was a place where he could see science coming into practicality. “Back then I had a friend who loved aquariums, but his mother did not permit him to have one at home. He stayed two streets away. His aquarium was at my place.
It’s a small community but we’re quite active fish lovers,” said Ashwin. Ram Keshav was studying Physics when he found photography as his calling. He dropped out of college. “I wanted to do what made me happy. One day I chanced upon a bunch of photographs and they were all in their negatives and not the printed forms. To my surprise, these were clicked by my father. Both of us sat together and went through the syllabus for visual communications, when I decided to change my field of study.
He felt that there were multiple online options to take up for this photography course. Alongside, I was also busy with wedding photography. But once I started my own enterprise, the situation was different,” said Ram. His schooling at Massachusetts- based Hallmark Institute of Photography further reinforced in him his belief that all he wanted to do was make people’s portraits — tell their story, paint their character and bring out their inner voice.
He knows that the road he has chosen is a long one where the horizon might forever seem distant but he also knows that this is what he wants to do in his life. Because doing this to him is bliss! The one and a half hour session took place at Odyssey in Adyar.