My most beautiful memories are of my grandmother who lived in Bhopal. We too lived there for sometime. She was an incredible lady.

If we ever hurt ourselves playing or even wounded ourselves badly, my grandmom would just pooh pooh it and say it was nothing. She taught us to be tough. She was tough herself. It was a house where all of us, cousins and uncles, got together and had lots of fun.

We used to play cricket. It was a wonderful and different world altogether.

We had our house at a place called Quasei Sultan. Grandmother always taught us to behave and never show off. She was a very modern and smart lady. She could drive a jaguar at 100 miles an hour and played tennis and squash. She lost her husband ? my grandfather ? very early and she always wore a white saree. But she did not let that get in her way of leading an active and normal life.

I went to school in England when I was nine years old. There I was treated like an Indian Prince because of my father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. But I remember those days in Bhopal as the best days of my life. The house is still the same. Sometimes I feel lonely and long for those days.

At school, in England, I remember throwing a rock and breaking the headmaster’s window. When he caught me I said that I’d never seen snow before and I had actually thrown a snowball at the window, and he let me go!