From Damu Shet's perspective, what was his grand financial plan, and why was he so devastated by Baba's response?

From his own perspective, Damu Shet had a clear and lucrative plan. As detailed in Chapter 25, he envisioned a specific outcome from the cotton trade: "I would have earned one lakh now, and put half a lakh on interest. I would have immediately become a millionaire money-lender and lived happily in Nagar." This wasn't just a vague hope; it was a fully-formed "kingdom of the mind." He was devastated by Baba's negative response because he saw it as a self-inflicted wound. He felt he had single-handedly "kicked away the served plate" that fortune had offered him. The crumbling of this mental fortress and the uprooting of his tree of hope left him utterly crestfallen, believing he had lost a guaranteed path to immense wealth and happiness.