I was born and brought up in Bangalore and was constantly surrounded by my family. It was my grandmother Indira Das who initiated me into music. In fact, my cousin and I started learning music from her.

My kindergarten teacher always used to ask me to dance on stage, but even at that age I knew what I wanted to do. I used to tell her that I would stand by the piano and sing. That was how my parents knew about my interest in music.

My grandmother was my first guru, but it wasn’t a formal guru-shishya relationship. I was only five when I started learning. My cousin and I were made to sit before a harmonium and given two options: Carnatic or Hindustani classical. Both of us decided upon the latter.

In school, I was a very quiet child. In fact, my parents used to tell me that I was a lion at home and a mouse at school. At home, however, I was very naughty and tomboyish. There were a lot of boys of my age in the neighbourhood, and we used to get into all sorts of mischief, such as climbing trees and plucking flowers. I still remember an incident when I was a little older. I had not done well in a test and I decided not to show my report card to my father. Instead, I forged his signature. I did not realise that I would get caught. When my father found out, he was very angry. He told me that he would take me to the police station since forging a signature was a crime. And he actually drove me to the police station, with me crying all the while. I learnt my lesson.

When I was 11, my mother took me to the US, where my uncle used to stay. It was there that I discovered rock‘’roll. It was a very memorable summer for me. I still remember watching Elvis Presley movies and asking my uncle to take me to a live concert. I was disappointed when he told me that Elvis had died when I was very young.