B>The most vivid memory of my childhood is going hunting with my father. I grew up in Jaipur, Rajasthan. There were forests all around the city and we went hunting every weekend. I used to love the mystery of the jungle at night. I didn?t like shooting, though. My father came from a zamindar family. So the hobby must have been in his blood. He blamed me for having a weak heart, unlike my younger brother who enjoyed the sport. My father was so good that he used to hunt fish with a gun. His favourite game bird was wild duck, which is supposed to be more difficult to hunt than big game like panthers.

Nce we found our house cat, tail up and fur standing on end. On searching for the reason for its terror, we found that my father had dumped a panther he had killed in one of the rooms. The cat was in such a state that for some days it refused to enter the rooms since it could smell the panther.

Hen I was 10, there was a restriction on hunting. But that did not stop my father. Once, when he had just returned from a hunt with friends, the police caught him. Nothing serious happened as the group had influential people. My mother also hated this hobby. Increasingly, there were serious differences between them as she believed that blood-spilling would result in retribution, on him or on us.

hated school. It made us leave home at 6 am and return at 3.30 pm. On the other hand, I was passionate about cricket. I played in the locality and even at Chowgan stadium. I almost made the C.K. Nayudu Trophy selections. But there was opposition from home. This helped me choose between sports and acting. I was forced to enrol for graduation. English, economics... I can?t even recall what subjects I took up. I had started acting with an amateur group but did not know how to get beyond that. Then I met a person from the National School of Drama. He made us stage plays everywhere in college ? the classroom, the corridor... We did a lot of experimental theatre. With that, acting became my goal.