India, March 10 -- Beta Mahatvaraj works a 9-to-5 job as chief operating officer with a climate-tech startup in Chennai. But he has a rather fishy alter ego.
For 18 years, he has run the Facebook page and YouTube channel Meenkaran (Tamil for fisherman), where he documents some of the varied species of freshwater fish found in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
Born in a village close to Tamil Nadu's Nagercoil, he grew up moving around Kerala, because of his father's job as a regional manager with a government-owned fertiliser company. Drawn to nature, as a boy, he often fished in streams and rivers.
"I was never very interested in academics, and would only read my aquarium books," he says, laughing. By the time he was about 20, he had sta...