I spent my childhood in Mumbai. We used to play cricket, hide and seek, and lots of other games.

And, we used to watch movies. We watched movies from the roadside during the Ganpati festivals and Janmashtami. We would even get together and watch movies at night, with permission from our parents of course. It was fun.

I was an average student because I was more interested in movies than in academics. In fact, when most children of my age were studying history and geography, I was trying to find out more about cinema. I would try and find out everything I could about films, like which actor was playing which role, the actress, the director, the producer, the year of release and so on.

One day, I went for a movie with my friends, but I told my parents that I was going for tuition. Unfortunately, I used to collect the tickets for all the movies that we went for. You can guess what happened next. My mother found the movie ticket inside my school book. She was very upset when she found out from my friends that I had indeed bunked tuition and gone to see a film. My father was a very strict man and when he found out, he promptly asked me to leave the house. I did leave the house but my mother finally brought my father around and asked him to forgive me. So I was given a second chance to improve myself. I came back home, but only after I had apologised.

As children, we often went for picnics, visited temples and celebrated festivals. The preparations for Janmashtami, at home were particularly interesting. In fact, I loved taking part in the dandiya ras and the garba during Navratri. It was such fun wearing new clothes everyday and showing them off to friends and relatives. Looking back, my childhood was filled with celebrations and festivals and we enjoyed them to the hilt. We celebrated all the festivals, Durga Puja, Diwali, Christmas and Ganpati Mahotsav. Things have changed now, but during our times, the festivals were fun because they were celebrated in the true spirit of the occasion. I had a great childhood spent with my elder sister and parents. But movies were the driving force of my childhood.