It began in my hometown, in a farming family and in an environment where business, money and everyday commerce were part of life.

Our family had agricultural roots and was involved in farming and selling agricultural products through APMC markets. Later, my father and mother started a small retail store.

Growing up, I experienced business at its most basic and real level — buying, selling, margins, customers, inventory, cash flow, demand and supply.

When I was just six years old, my father made a mutual fund investment in my name through a AMC Franklin Templeton.

At that age, I obviously didn’t understand what a mutual fund was.

But I remember receiving dividend cheques in my name.

I would deposit those cheques, and slowly a simple question started forming in my mind:

That question became one of my earliest sparks of curiosity about investing.

My father would correspond with the fund company to change the payout option and have the distributions reinvested. A family cousin, who was a lawyer, helped with the documentation and correspondence.

Today, such a change can happen in a few clicks.

Back then, it meant forms, letters, signatures, postage and waiting.

We were growing up in hometown, a Tier-3 city, where access to financial information was very different from what it is today.

There were no smartphones, investment apps, live market feeds or instant notifications.

We would receive market news and share-price information once a week — and sometimes only once a month.

I would often listen to my father and his friends discussing the stock market — companies, investments, market crashes and stories of people who had made or lost enormous amounts of money.

I didn’t understand the market then,

But I was fascinated by it.

The questions kept growing.

Academically, I pursued Science — PCMB in PUC.

But my interests were increasingly moving towards business dynamics, accounting, money and markets.

Eventually, I decided not to pursue science further and switched to Commerce.

I began studying Accounts, Finance and Business, and slowly started connecting what I was learning in the classroom with what I had been observing in real life.

The journey, looking back, feels almost like a natural progression:

I didn’t discover the stock market overnight.

The curiosity was built over years — through my family’s farming and businesses, an early mutual fund investment, dividend cheques arriving by post, letters travelling between Hometown and fund companies, weekly or monthly market information, and conversations about businesses and markets.

Perhaps that’s why I call myself a “Scie-Com” guy.

Life for me isn’t only about businesses, investments and markets.

I find myself equally drawn to Theater, Cinema and Music. They offer a different way of looking at people, stories, emotions and the world around us.

Wildlife Photography is one of my hobbies.

Being in the wild teaches me something that business and markets cannot — patience.

You wait. You observe. You stay quiet. And sometimes, after hours of waiting, you get that one moment worth capturing.